


Sacrifice & Consequence

by insufferable (busdriver)



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Found Family, Horror, Hurt Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Kidnapping, M/M, Magical Fuckery, On a tentative hiatus, POV Multiple, Protective Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, The Worst Family Outing, Torture, eskel & lambert - freeform, excessive use of em dashes and italics, i still dont know what freeform means, ive accidentally given jaskier lambert and ciri adhd in this fic, no im not projecting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24824380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busdriver/pseuds/insufferable
Summary: “Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is die.”On their path to Kaer Morhen - something tugs on the strings of destiny and threatens to tear Yennefer's fragile family apart.And everything changes.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 63
Kudos: 240





	1. Unequivocal Truths

**Author's Note:**

> i grappled with writing/sharing this story for a long time & my writing is still rusty after barely writing at all for several years so i apologise if its off. this is lots of setup mostly lol
> 
> there are mentions of trauma & depictions of injuries, minor depictions of violence & characters in restraints. the tags & rating will probably change in the next chapter too

_“Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is die.”_

Yennefer wakes – not with a start but with a wave of unease. Memories of Aretuza pierced her otherwise dreamless sleep far too often. Tissaia’s words, Fringilla’s shrivelled hand, poor Anica – left betrayed, floating until the end of time. Some days, she felt those Unascended as though they slivered through her own veins, whispering for release beneath her flesh.

Sunlight filters into the tent through the thin canvas and she looks over at the empty space in the bed. Geralt is gone but Ciri sleeps silently next to her, head pillowed in ashen waves. There is a _whoosh_ from outside – the distinct sound of Geralt casting Igni – followed by the initial crackles of a fire. Wiggling slightly closer to Ciri, she throws an arm over her face to block out the intruding sun and wills herself to drift once more.

After the mountain, after Sodden – Geralt had sought her out fuelled by desperation and confusion, Cintran Princess under his arm. Had she not been so injured, so thoroughly _exhausted_ , she would have rejected him, thrown him away. But Sodden had quite literally sapped all the fire out of her veins, leaving her cold and wanting. And despite the Djinn, despite the rage she had felt atop that mountain she found herself missing the way his body curved into hers. That rage was gone, extinguished by something far more horrifying.

Ciri stirs next to her, inhaling sharply. They open their eyes at the same time, and she smiles, turning onto her side. “Good morning, little lion cub.”

Ciri yawns, stretches. “Good morning, Yennefer.”

“No dreams last night?”

Ciri smiles softly. “None.”

“Good.”

Ciri looks over at her, eyes slightly wide. “Did _you_ have any dreams?”

Yennefer pauses, tongue suddenly thick in her mouth. “No,” she lies, taking a lock of Ciri’s hair and curling it, “I slept as soundly as a cat on a hearth.” Ciri sighs, seemingly content. Yennefer throws the blankets off their bodies, making Ciri groan. “Come, we’ve a long day ahead and I think Geralt is cooking breakfast.”

Pulling on her boots and skirts she heads outside into the crisp morning air. Geralt had his back to them, tending to three skinned rabbits on a spit. With a wave of her hand the tent vanishes into her pack once more. While still depleted of Chaos, she had built just enough to aid with everyday tasks and using it – even sparingly – kept her at ease, reminded her that she was still useful.

She moves to Geralt, placing a hand between his shoulder blades. He grunts. They were heading North, trying to outrun the growing frost and reach Kaer Morhen before winter swallowed the surrounding mountains. But even though they were running, Geralt still took time to cook for them, took time to care for them both and imbue his actions with apologies and affections.

“Eat,” he says, “then we move.”

*

The day sours not long after they begin moving. Geralt walks beside Roach as Yennefer and Ciri sit atop her saddle. Endless blue turns grey and a fine sheen of mist falls over them. Yennefer pulls her hood further over her head and holds Ciri closer to her chest. The unease she felt that morning hadn’t faded – instead she felt it shifting and pooling in her stomach, making her nauseous, like filthy dishwater churning in her insides.

“What’s Kaer Morhen like?” Ciri asks, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Yennefer looks down at Geralt. He tenses, frowns. A halo of white frizz sits around his head. “Cold,” he offers.

His answer does not satisfy Ciri as she whines. “ _Geralt,_ is that all? What does it look like? Who lives there? How many _rooms_ are there?”

Yennefer’s lips quirk. “Witchers live there, Cub. It’s where Geralt was trained with his brothers.” 

Geralt opens his mouth, the wheels of his mind turn as he searches for words that may sate Ciri’s curiosity. “Yen’s right… I was raised there, with my brothers and sword master. It’s…” A pause. “Big.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes and huffs blithely. “You’ll see it soon, Ciri.”

“What about you, Yennefer?” Ciri asks, turning slightly so she can look at Yennefer. “Where did you grow up?”

Instantly she finds herself mirroring Geralt’s reticence. “I was taught at a place called Aretuza, Cub.” Ciri nods, eyes twinkling. “It’s…” A beat of silence. “Big.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow, amusement ghosting over his face and Ciri groans. That shifting pool in her stomach crawls up her throat.

She frowns, trying to find the right words to describe the place that had shaped her. She wants to expand, wants to allow Ciri into that place in her chest where so few people have been given access, but the resentment she feels gives her pause. She simply cannot verbalise the enormity of Aretuza, cannot bring herself to speak of such traumas to an already traumatised child. 

Instead, she settles for a bland explanation, something any history book could tell you. “I was taught about magic and Chaos at Aretuza. It is a school for sorceresses, I had few sisters when I was taught there.”

Ciri hums. Shifts. Slumps. “You’re both terrible.”

*

They ride for an hour in silence before Yennefer feels a familiar prickle of magic crawl down her arms, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She whips around to look at Geralt who is already reaching for his sword. They share a glance and she tightens her grip on Roach’s reigns.

A second passes and that nauseating pool in her stomach grows, _undulates,_ and she retches. Digging her fingers into Roach’s saddle, she feels herself being tugged and _something_ yanks her downward. She slams into Geralt, Ciri following a second later, crashing into her back. She’s sandwiched between the two of them – struggling to breathe, trashing against invisible restraints. She feels Geralt cast Aard but it’s weak, barely blowing a breeze through her hair.

Ciri screams and flails. And that mass in her stomach gnaws at her, and she can feel it feeding on her insides. Tendrils of thick blue smoke swirl around them and she reaches for her Chaos, desperately grabbing for _something_ – but that pool, that shifting pool pushes back. She can’t help the scream that escapes her, it’s as though a corpse has its fingers inside of her – cold and _clawing_. She frantically looks to Geralt who is simply trying to push them apart, his medallion humming incessantly against both their chests.

This is not any kind of magic she has ever experienced.

And when she feels as though she may pass out – they fall. Still crushed and writhing against one another.

It isn’t a portal they travel through. It’s something different _entirely._ And it goes _on and on._

They land in a pile, limbs entangled, her ankle _snaps_ beneath her and without thinking she tries to summon a portal, _tries_ to take them away. But nothing comes out of her, save for a strangled cry.

There’s an explosion over their heads, a green cloud crackles around them. A dimeritium bomb, she’s certain of it. White spots dance in her vision and she vomits onto the floor, shaking and retching. A sob escapes her, and her body gives out – plunging her into blackness.

*

She’s jostled out of the darkness to hands on her shoulders and a pounding in her ears. Two heavy weights slide around her wrists and a dull ache races through her arms. Dimertium cuffs. Someone lifts her up and she moans as her ankle is jostled. A manacle is snapped around her uninjured ankle, followed by the rattle of a chain. Panic courses through her, forcing her consciousness to crash back into her skull and she snarls, kicks out, claws at the person holding her. The cuffs aren’t connected to one another, they are simply there to suppress her.

And so, she does what she was taught to do when unarmed – she goes for his eyes, his throat, his knees. But the man holding her is wearing heavy plated armor and a helmet, rendering her assault useless. He steps away from her with barely a glance and she wants to _scream._

Geralt is to her left, chained and on his knees, arms pulled above his head. There are chains around his chest, his arms, his wrists, his thighs, each pulled tight and connected to a pike in the floor. He's too far away for her to reach him, tethered as she is.

She looks for Ciri and her vision whites when she cannot see her. “Where the fuck is the girl?” No response. “Where is she?!”

Geralt snaps his eyes up to look at her, expression fierce, every line in his body is hard, _seething._ He shakes his head ever so slightly. There is one other man in the room, standing over Geralt. Both men are dressed in navy blue armour with black embellishments. She wants to balk – navy and black, a truly insulting combination. But instead, she sets her jaw, hardens her gaze. Whatever this is, wherever they are – it was planned. Thoroughly.

The room they are in is small, lined by thick stone walls with only two torches on either side. In the middle of the room is another figure, also on their knees, arms outstretched to the sides in manacles bolted to the floor. Their head is bowed, tucked against their chest, and around them is a small circle painted in navy, with flourishes and symbols and sigils that she doesn’t regonise.

The two men file out of the room in silence, closing the door behind them and she tugs on the cuffs. “Where did they take Fiona?” she hisses, twisting to look at Geralt. She refuses to utter Ciri’s name for fear they are still being observed or listened to.

Geralt doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at her. He’s steeled, taut, staring forward _._ She follows his gaze to the figure in the center of the room and there’s something so familiar about the lean shape before them. The brown curls, the thicket of chest hair that peeks through the top of the loose tunic and – _oh._

_“Jaskier.”_


	2. Shattered Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I havent written a _series_ since i was 12 writing naruto self insert fanfic on quizilla so im a bit lost lmao
> 
> Warnings: mentions of torture, injuries, characters in restraints, seizures, & an allusion to a canon suicide attempt

“No,” Lambert says.

The innkeeper blinks, unease bleeds from his skin and the stink of it floods Lambert’s nostrils. He rolls his eyes.

“If it’s a wraith, I want at least 150 crowns, upfront.” He plants his palm on the bar, doubles down. Rakverelin was his last stop before he headed for Kaer Morhen for the winter and he wanted at least one adrenaline high and a night at a brothel before leaving.

“We don’t quite know what it is, Sir.” The innkeeper squirms. “But 120 is all the lads and I could scrounge up.”

Lambert hums and scans the surroundings. The inn and tavern clearly weren’t doing well for themselves, only two patrons sit at the tables nursing their weak ale and the wooden structure is beginning to rot. Geralt and Eskel would take 120 from this man, hell, Geralt and Eskel would probably take 100 from this man and mewl with pity while doing it.

He is not, however, Geralt or Eskel.

“135. _But_ I get free food and drink _and_ a room.”

The innkeeper pales, flexes his hand at his side. “Master Witcher…” The pair simply stare at each other for a long moment before the innkeeper sighs and concedes. “I’ll have the extra 15 by morning, Sir.” He drops a coin purse onto the bar. Lambert nods.

“So, tell me where I can find this fuckin’ wraith.”

*

It turns out – there is no fuckin’ wraith. What there is instead, is the pungent stench of magic that makes Lambert’s medallion thrum and his head throb.

The innkeeper had told him that a handful of people had disappeared from a small thicket of trees a short walk from the city, vanished without a trace. There wasn’t much to go off, aside from ‘menacing blue lights’ and reports of screaming beyond the line of trees. Hence, his conclusion of _wraithly_ goings on.

He scowls, kicking at an exposed root before moving further into the thickening line of trees. He’d been promised a _thicket,_ not a forest. Thickets were manageable, boasting simpler monsters and beasts. Forests were decidedly _un_ manageable. And this was definitely turning into a forest.

A hare hurries away in his periphery. The thin, autumn sun grows thinner as the surrounding trees tighten their ranks. The smell grows stronger and reflexively he reaches for his sword.

Silver until proven otherwise.

Magic was tricky business.

He pauses for a second to inhale, furrowing his brow. Another scent mingles with the first and it’s weaker, coupled with the smell of two others, but he recognises it instantly. 

Geralt.

He walks faster. It was only natural for his brother to follow a similar route on his way to Kaer Morhen – the innkeeper hadn’t mentioned seeing another Witcher in the area but Lambert would be damned if he let Geralt take his contract money.

The stench increases and he stops to inspect his surroundings. There are hoof prints in the dirt, partially obscured by brown leaves and a trail of heavy, booted tracks running parallel to them. He shifts the leaves with his foot for a moment and then something catches his eye.

Two swords lay on the ground, one still sheathed and the other covered in soil.

Lambert tenses. "No fuckin' way..." he murmurs and moves over to them. 

Those were Geralt's swords. Unease prickles at his flesh. No Witcher would be caught dead without their swords. He bends to pick them up, shaking the first one free of dirt, and then slides them onto his back.

The bordering trees are scored with deep lines and there’s a small crater like shape in the earth, just to the right of Geralt's swords. He frowns. The smell of magic was strongest here. He stands once more, runs his tongue across his teeth, and turns to prod at one of the trees. His fingers come away stained blue and reeking. 

A branch snaps nearby and another wave of Geralt’s scent wafts over to him. He whips around, sword at the ready. 

“Roach? The fuck?”

Roach stumbles backwards, her eyes more white than brown. She huffs and shakes her head at him. "Fuck, sorry," he says, sheathing his sword. 

Vesemir had always said Witcher’s horses often reflected their owners – and Roach was no exception to this rule. Notoriously nippy and always grumbling, Lambert half expected her to grow a white mane.

He rummages in his pockets and produces an apple. Halving it with his hands, he offers it to her, slowly extending his arm. She huffs. Sniffs at him. Then takes the apple from his hand. He grins and reaches to run a soothing hand down her nose.

While keeping a hand on her flank, he moves to her side and finds three full packs still attached to her saddle. And, he notes, with the inhuman clarity that he so hates – there are nail marks on her saddle, long and white in the leather, as though someone had been dragged off Roach’s back.

Geralt would never leave his horse in the middle of nowhere, nor would he leave her carrying all of his things. Geralt loved that damn horse, looked after her with the same painstaking care he applied to his swords.

“Where’s Geralt, girl,” he murmurs. She huffs again. He feeds her the other half of the apple and takes her reigns. There’s no other signs of Geralt’s scent beyond Roach, nor is there any other signs of the other scents he had smelled. It ends there. 

A chill breeze floats past him, allowing the trees to converse quietly around him. Lambert sighs.

“Guess I won’t be getting a good fuck tonight then.”

**

_“Jaskier.”_

Yennefer’s mouth goes dry. All her rage snuffs out, morphs into churning dread. She looks over at Geralt.

“Geralt,” she breathes. “Wh-” the question expires on her tongue.

_Where is Ciri?_

He snaps his head towards her. Fierce and seething. A wolf in a trap. “I don’t _know,”_ he hisses. 

Her head is still reeling. Body still uncooperative. Ankle still throbbing. There is too much to take in, too many questions and no one to answer them. The acrid stink of vomit and piss and blood cloys her throat, flipping her empty stomach.

Geralt begins tugging at the chains, pulling and thrashing and the noise reverberates off the stone walls, cacophonous in her ears. Yennefer is half convinced he would try and bite his own arm off to escape.

“ _Geralt_ ,” she says, trying to sound soothing but it comes off more as a plea.

He stops immediately, pauses for a moment, then closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath.

“I know,” she whispers, “I know.” 

She looks down at her arms, runs a finger around the manacles. There’s something ironic about the way the they mask her scars.

She’s been trapped like this before. A pig in a barn. Locked in a room after being sold to Aretuza. Even though a short life time has passed since then, that feeling of helplessness had always propelled her forward, made her seek power and control – whatever the cost. She had sworn to herself she would never feel powerless, _weak_ ever again.

A fresh wave of anger surges through her and she tugs at the manacles. But they are so tight. So fucking tight. She can’t even squeeze a finger between metal and flesh.

“ _Yennefer_.” It’s Geralt’s turn this time to try and sound soothing and fail. She lets out an exasperated growl, giving on final tug to the metal on her wrists. Between them they had enough focused fury to fell an army – and yet, here they were, trapped and rabid, with no one but themselves to unleash their rage on.

_Except._

There was another person in the room. 

She looks over to Jaskier once more. Anguished in his repose, his breaths are uneven and even in the meagre light she can see his fingers are devoid of their nails. His shadow is long and thin, flickering on the floor.

“He attacked me the last time I saw him,” Geralt says after a long moment.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “ _Jaskier…_ Attacked _you.”_

“Yes.” 

She sets her jaw. “Why?”

Geralt’s frown deepens. “We…I…” He snarls again and tugs on the chains.

“ _Geralt._ _What happened?”_

“I don’t _know,”_ he shoots back. His eyes are wild, but his voice is tinged with despair. The same aching desperation she had heard fall from his lips when he had begged her to forgive him after the mountain. “We were at an inn together and he just… came at me.”

“When was this?”

“After that… _fucking_ mountain. I went to find him. To apologise…”

“You said some things to him?” she deadpans.

“Yes. I found him at a tavern and we-”

He’s cut off by a sharp intake of breath from across the room. Jaskier’s head jerks up, blank eyes snapping open.

And both the torches snuff out.

The darkness they tumble into is almost tangible. Heavy and suffocating.

An achingly small voice flits through the air.

_“Is someone there?”_

“Jaskier,” she whispers.

He doesn’t answer. She waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but there is nothing to adjust to.

“Jaskier…” Geralt this time.

Still nothing.

And then – the sound of coughing and spluttering pierces the air. Desperate attempts to suck in breath.

“He’s seizing,” Geralt hisses, _“fuck.”_

Geralt’s chains rattle and shake once more and she’s jarred into a panic. The sound an assault on her deprived senses. Never in her life has her heart beat so fast.

Shaky hands reach for her own chain, pulling on the pike, desperate to find release. But there’s no weak link, no give in the pike.

Then her body starts moving, something drags her forward. It’s the same sensation as before when she was tugged out of Roach’s saddle. Jaskier’s spluttering turns into garbles and whimpers and an awful, _awful_ choking noise. And she’s being pulled toward the centre of the room. Her grips shifts and now she’s holding the chain as it is pulled taut. Her leg stretches out behind her. She cries out as her injured ankle drags across the floor. Geralt is yelling something nearby but she can’t hear it. Can’t hear anything save for that noise, _that fucking noise._ She feels as though her leg will separate from her hip. She claws at the floor. Digs her nails into anything that will grant her purchase. The chain will tear her leg off and –

The door bursts open beside her.

Whatever was tugging her stops in an instant and she flinches, gasps for breath as the room floods with light again.

Jaskier is still jerking in his bonds, spittle and foam dripping from his lips.

“Oh, dear,” a woman’s voice, calm and unnerving in its pleasantry, “our Bard blew out the lights.”

Yennefer jerks up and stares at the trio of people moving into the space. A woman swathed in navy blue silks stands at the helm bordered by two men wearing the same heinous navy and blue armour as the others.

“ _Do something,”_ Geralt says.

The woman waves her hand, the air thins, and Jaskier crumples, breath returning to normal.

Yennefer shuffles back over to the pike to release the pressure on her leg. She places a flat palm on the floor in an effort to ground herself.

“Better?” the woman asks, lips thinning into a grimace. She stands tall, hands folded at her front. She has the striking beauty of a Sorceress and the stature of a noble, though her blonde hair is greasy and thin.

Geralt stares at her, incredulous and seething.

Yennefer composes herself, straightens her spine. “What _is_ this?” she grits out, “where did you take the girl?”

“Cirilla is fine,” the woman says, and it takes every ounce of Yennefer’s self control to remain calm, to appear unmoved when the woman says Ciri’s name so casually.

“ _Explain,”_ Geralt growls.

“No,” she says, flatly, “it’s not the right time.” She pats one of the men on the arm. “Please tend to the Bard.” One of the armoured men stomps over to Jaskier, bending down in front of him.

“What have you done to him?” Geralt asks.

He’s met with silence and then he jerks forward, spits out the question once more. _“What have you done to him?”_

She regards Geralt for a moment, expression unreadable. Her milk white skin seems to exude light, like a wraith stalking a cornfield.

It looks as if she is going to say something but a strangled cry from the centre of the room stops her.

Jaskier has his teeth buried in the man’s neck.

The other man rushes over and there’s a flail of limbs, a string of curses and shouts. The woman simply observes, unperturbed. Time slows as Yennefer watches the second man slam his boot down on Jaskier’s hand. She can’t help the cry that escapes her.

He _howls._

Everything goes white at the edges. She’s only half aware of Geralt cursing and tugging on his own restraints.

Jaskier’s howls fade, turning into harrowed sobs.

And Yennefer never wants to hear that sound again.

The woman gestures to the men. “Leave. Fix yourselves up.” They both stand, one spits at Jaskier before stamping out of the room.

Jaskier stares at his hand as though it is the only thing in the world. Blood stains his teeth and his front, drips onto the floor below him.

“Leave him be,” Geralt hisses.

Jaskier’s eyes widen. He slowly turns to look over at Geralt. Sees him for the first time.

“No,” he whispers, “ _no.”_

Geralt shifts, tenses.

“You’re _dead._ I watched you _die.”_ He lurches forward, whimpering when his hand catches on the manacle. 

Geralt breathes Jaskier’s name, cradles it in his mouth.

The woman releases a sigh. “I’ll leave you three to chat.”

“Don’t you _dare,”_ Yennefer snarls, “what the fuck is going on here?”

The woman casts her a pained glance. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

Then she leaves, closing the door on Yennefer’s string of curses, leaving the three of them alone in the cold and haunted room once more.


	3. Layers of Movement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I have returned.  
> I am so sorry this took so long. I'm juggling 2 1/2 jobs on top of study, so naturally, I havent had a lot of time. however, my state declared a 'state of disaster' so no one can go anywhere & uh, silver lining? ill have more time? 
> 
> ANYWAY, Thank u to everyone who left me a comment or kudos, it means so much :') & i hope youre all looking after yourselves atm

_“I’m sorry.” Although the words are gritted out through clenched teeth, Jaskier can feel the truth of them, the gravity._

_He chooses to ignore it._

_Geralt’s fist is clenched on the table and he’s staring at Jaskier with an intensity that would make a normal man quiver. Jaskier merely sips his wine and scowls._

_The world is hazy, soft at the edges, the fifth glass of wine isn’t sitting right on his stomach. He licks his lips. “You wanna know something, Geralt?” He leans forward, close enough that he knows the smell of alcohol will encroach on Geralt’s heightened senses. “You’re a real cunt sometimes. All the time, actually.” He thinks for a moment. “And you’ve got a stick up your arse.”_

_“I’m sorry,” Geralt says again._

_Jaskier throws his arms out to the side. “Y’hear that?! Geralt of Rivia, apologising, to_ me _. Fucker of destinies, renown shoveler of shit.” A dwarf from another table turns to stare at him and Jaskier waggles his fingers, winks sloppily. The dwarf flips him off._

_“Jaskier,” Geralt warns._

_Jaskier slumps back against the tavern wall. “What do you want from me?”_

_Geralt flattens his palm against the table. Shifts in his seat. Grunts._

_Jaskier sighs and slides further down the wall. Watching Geralt battle the common tongue so valiantly had once left him feeling warm, as though he carried sunlight in his body - but now he watched in stony silence._

_“Come with me, again,” Geralt says._

_“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he lies._

_Geralt lowers his gaze. Fixes his eyes on the wall behind Jaskier._

_“Oh, don’t get that look.” He rolls his eyes. “Ask me again next time we cross paths.”_

_Jaskier swears he sees Geralt light up_ _at that – although, it was probably just the wine._

 _He stumbles to get out of his chair, legs turning to jelly._ When had he become such a lightweight? _Geralt stands to help him, reaching to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. Jaskier curves his body away._

_“Don’t, just don’t.”_

_He moves, forces his jelly legs to walk him away. And there’s a moment, a single moment, where he considers whirling around – spilling his guts all over the tavern floor. He recalls finding his mother once, in a sobbing heap, she had taken his hands in hers and said: ‘love should never_ hurt _, Julian.’_

 _And Jaskier had spent two decades_ hurting _. Had spent two decades staring at Geralt’s back, hoping and yearning, sick with want._

_This time he lets Geralt watch him leave. Lets Geralt stare at his back._

_And_ oh _, it was an unenviable mistake._

*

When he was a teenager living in Kaer Morhen Vesemir had taken to calling Lambert a ‘portable mess.’ While it was said with the stern fondness Vesemir applied to all the younger Wolves and Witchers who lived in the Keep, Lambert still resented the epithet.

But now, as he surveyed his room, he could kind of see where the old man was coming from.

All his worldly possessions were strewn across the floor. Spare breeches flung onto the stained bedspread, potions knocked onto the floor, whetstone abandoned by the door, and everything seemed to have a hunk of half-eaten jerky stuck to it, along with an ungodly amount of _sand._

How had he managed to collect so much _sand?_

He rummages through the last of his saddlebags, cursing and throwing more chunks of jerky onto the floor. He tips the bag upside down and only a single sewant mushroom falls out. He makes a noise and drops the bag on the bed.

 _‘A Witcher cannot afford to be disorganised.’_ Vesemir’s voice echoes in his head.

“Fuck off, old man,” he grumbles and glowers at the inns filthy, wooden walls.

“Fucking arse tits _fuck.”_ He stands and surveys the space, eyes landing on Geralt swords and he shoves a pang of worry away with a practiced hand.

Then he remembers.

Years ago, he’d had a pocket sewn into the back of his sword sheath. A pocket to house anything _important._ A pocket he conveniently forgot about every time he needed those _important_ items.

Struck dumb for a second, he stands and stares at his own swords before picking the sheath up off the floor and unbuttoning the pocket. He pulls each item out one by one: a metacarpal bone, a leather pouch, a cat school medallion and then, right at the bottom, he closes his hand around it.

The Xenovox.

Eskel had given it to him after the sacking of Kaer Morhen, made him promise to call if he ever needed help. Lambert supposed this situation constituted _need._

He runs his thumb across the decorative plating along the outside. The lattice is coming away and the sharp metal catches on his skin. 

Pressing down on the top, the way Eskel had shown him, he says, “um… Eskel? Hello?"

There’s a long moment of silence, and he considers simply tossing the device to the other side of the room.

Then the xenovox lights up, followed by a tinny crackle and a frustrated _‘fuck.’_

 _“Lambert, what the fuck?”_ Eskel’s voice floats up from the palm of his hand.

“Eskel, hi,” he says, “listen, I gotta know, where are you right now?”

_“Uh, just outside Vergen…”_

“Look, I’ve got a curious case of a missing Geralt and I didn’t know who else to call.”

_“What?”_

Lambert toys with a bottle of swallow in his spare hand. “I think Geralt’s... missing. I found his swords and his horse abandoned in the woods while I was chasing a contract. He’s just _gone._ ”

There’s another long moment of silence, then Eskel says, _“where are you?”_

“Rakverelin.”

Eskel clicks his tongue. _“That’s a two days ride from here.”_

“Find a mage.”

_“I can’t just…”_

“You can.”

 _“Melitele’s…_ No _. Scorpion hates portals and so do I.”_

Lambert gets up from the bed and wanders over to the saddle bags. “ _Eskel._ Have you ever known any Witcher to just leave their swords in middle of nowhere? Have you ever known _Geralt_ to do that?”

Silence.

“Well?”

_“I suppose…”_

“Come on then, portal in. I’m staying at the first inn past the gates.” 

_“Fine.”_ A sigh. _“Give me a couple hours.”_

*

Lambert gives him a couple hours.

And then a couple more.

He almost convinces himself that Eskel isn’t coming, and as he’s casting another mournful glance towards the brothel down the street there’s a flash of light and a swirling portal manifests in front of the inn.

Both Eskel and his horse, Scorpion step through, looking sour and slightly green.

“Eskel!” he cries, “you’re as ugly as I remember.”

“Fuck off.”

Lambert claps him on the shoulder and pulls him into an embrace, one that is begrudgingly reciprocated.

“Lambert, if what you’re telling me is true, I don’t know why you’re so… _chipper_ ,” Eskel says, and regards Lambert with a raised eyebrow.

Lambert shrugs. “I can’t sit around simpering and sobbing. And besides, I haven’t seen you since last winter.”

Eskel narrows his eyes. “Well, don’t go saying things like that too loudly.” He leans forward conspiratorially. “People might start to think that Witchers don’t have feelings _.”_

*

It doesn’t take them long to get back to the forest and Lambert relays the story to Eskel, who simply hums and nods and furrows his brow. The spot he had found Roach was entirely unchanged, with barely a hare’s footprint in the earth or a bird’s song in the surrounding trees.

“Last I heard Geralt was ploughing a Sorceress,” Lambert says, after a moment.

“Yennefer’s a nice lady,” Eskel retorts, bending to inspect the earth beneath them.

“Oh, she has a _name.”_

“Yes. Women generally do.”

“What’s she like?”

Eskel turns to look at him, incredulous. “Can you _help?_ ”

Lambert huffs and sinks to match Eskel’s stance. A sharp gust of wind blows through the trees and the branches groan and bend in protest.

Eskel shifts the dirt with his hands. “There’s also that blue shit over there,” Lambert says, pointing at the scored trees nearby. 

Eskel grunts. “I swear I’ve smelled this before.”

“Oh?”

Eskel lifts a finger to his mouth and inspects the dirt for a second before dabbing it on the tip of his tongue. He considers for a moment, swirls the dirt around his mouth.

“Thoughts?”

Eskel stands and moves towards the trees and prods them in the same manner before putting the blue reside on his tongue. He opens his mouth, face still scrunched in consideration. “Was that all the innkeeper told you?”

Lambert makes a noise of assent. 

“And there was nothing out of place in Geralt’s pack?”

“I don’t think so.”

Eskel puts his hands on his hips. “Stand over there,” he says, and points at a spot about ten meters away from him.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Lambert scowls and walks over to the spot. Eskel moves, positions himself onto the disturbed earth, faces Lambert.

And then casts Igni.

“Hey, what-” Lambert flinches, reflexively moving out the way.

But the flame stops mid air, folds in on itself and vanishes in front of his eyes. Only a single spark floats down to the earth.

“I thought so,” Eskel says, digging his foot into the ground.

Lambert composes himself then points his finger at Eskel. “Warn me, next time.”

“Do you know the story of the Asheburg nobility?” Eskel asks.

“No.” 

Eskel hums. “It’s been at least three decades but the Court mage skinned them all alive in front of their children. I was in Asheburg at the time, chasing down a Katakan that was preying on young men in the town.” He takes a step forward and moves his hand through the air as though he’s looking for something. “I wasn’t inside the keep or anything when it happened and I left pretty quickly when I heard what happened, but you could smell it a mile off. This bizarre magic smell. It’s the same here.”

“Okay. But how did you know to do _that?”_ Lambert waves his hand, gestures at the empty space in front of him.

“You can’t use magic inside the Asheburg keep, or at least everyone tells you not to. I thought it was because of what had happened there, but I tried using Igni once just to light a torch, and the flame vanished as it was cast. I saw it, and I felt the warmth of it on my fingers, but it just vanished. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t think too hard about it until now.”

“Wait-”

“I don’t understand it, either,” Eskel says, answering Lambert’s question before he can ask it.

“Asheburg’s a long way from here.”

“It is.”

They both stand there for a second in silence, still as the surrounding forest.

“I’m glad you contacted me,” Eskel says and Lambert nods.

*

_Sleep is ripped away from Jaskier, as heat crawls across his skin and comes to settle in the pit of bubbling nausea that is his stomach. He groans and manages to throw his head and torso over the edge of the bed just in time to throw up on the floor._

_Tears prickle at the corners of his eyes and he stares, dumbfounded, at the puddle of bile and wine on the floor beneath him._

_“Gods, I must be getting old,” he muses. Five glasses and he’s out, that must be some kind of sick joke._

_His arms hang limply beside him, knuckles resting on the cool wood floor. The pit in his stomach churns, crawls up his throat and he dry heaves. A groan slips from his lips and he can feel the acid clinging to his teeth._

_The moon is still high in the cloudless sky, full and shimmering outside his window. That meant it had only been a few hours since his conversation with Geralt._

Geralt.

 _Memories of their conversation saunter through his mind and the words, ‘_ I’m sorry,’ _make him wince. He takes a steadying breath and closes his eyes._

_There’s a shuffling noise from somewhere in the room and he jerks his head up. The room spins in protest. He can’t see anything, or anyone, in the room. He tries to sit up, but his body is still liquid and heavy._

_Someone hisses his name, ‘Jaskier,’ quick and sharp._

_“Hello?” he manages to say, dread twists in his stomach, clenches at his insides._

_“Jaskier,” the voice says, again and Jaskier grits his teeth, wills his limbs to cooperate_.

_A wave of indignance rolls through him as he scans the shadows. If someone had stolen into his room to murder him, while he was alone and reeking of vomit, in Asheburg of all places, that would be a tragedy – and not the kind other Bards would pen ballads about._

_Something soft lands on the bed next to him and he can’t quite register it._

_“Witchers are like cockroaches – cut off the head and they keep moving.”_

_The shape morphs, comes into focus._

_White hair, red at the ends, amber eyes._

_All the heat in his body drains away._

_Geralt – Geralt’s head – blinks.._

_And Jaskier screams._

*

Jaskier stares at Geralt. Lips still stained with blood part ever so slightly. A fresh bruise darkens on his cheek and his hand is already beginning to swell.

The silence stretches on and Yennefer can only hear the sound of her own beating heart.

“You’re dead,” Jaskier breathes.

“No,” Geralt responds, immediately.

“ _No_ …” He scrunches his eyes closed and shakes his head. There’s a twitch to his movements, a tremor. He’s much thinner than Yennefer remembers – bony wrists and gaunt cheeks. _“_ This is _wrong_. I watched you..."

“Whatever you saw, whatever you felt, that wasn’t _real,_ Jaskier,” Geralt says.

A wet laugh. Jaskier tilts his head back until he’s staring at the ceiling. There’s a thin, faded red line around his throat. “You would say that.” He snaps his head back down to look at Geralt.

“Jaskier, I promise you, we are both very much real and very much alive,” Yennefer says.

He rolls his head towards her, lips curling into a grimace. “I did think my subconscious was being particularly cruel today.”

The jibe catches her off guard. It’s so familiar, their mutual snark and disdain, that she has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she leans forward to pick up a pebble and throws it at him. It hits him lightly on the shoulder, and he blinks. “Did that feel like your subconscious?” It’s petty, and childish, and she knows it, but she’s desperate, both to convince him that they’re _real_ and in another, more foreign way, she loathes to see him this _._ Endlessly hyperbolic in every regard, to see him look so small, a shivering understatement – it was wretched.

He looks between them, shoulders slumping and after a moment he whispers, “this isn’t fair.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says and his tone is jarring in its sincerity.

Jaskier huffs a laugh. “Fuck off.”

She can see Geralt thinking out the corner of her eye. See his mind ticking over. “What would it take for you to trust me?” he asks.

Jaskier sighs. Steals a glance at his crushed hand. Shakes his head. “I don’t know. I lost you twice, already. Even if this is some kind of trick, illusion, whatever, I think I’m allowed to indulge. Just for a time.”

Geralt softens just a bit. Muted electricity runs between them, every unspoken word, all the ache and misguided contempt.

And in turn, something hot and ugly bristles across Yennefer’s flesh as realisation dawns on her. All the sickening softness, the way Geralt seemed to wane in the silence when they had been travelling with Ciri, the way he had scanned every tavern, stared at each Bard with what she had thought was contempt. It wasn't contempt - it was fucking _yearning._

She snaps her jaw closed. Shoves the feeling away. Whatever it was _–_ it could wait.

“Jaskier, look at me. We came here with a girl, Cirilla. They’ve taken her somewhere and-”

“You’re under the impression I’ve been told anything,” he cuts in.

She deflates. “Of course.”

Jaskier’s blinks slowly. His eyelids start to droop, and he furrows his brow.

“Come on, Bard,” she urges, “don’t fade yet.”

His eyes snap open and Yennefer swears the irises flash green for just a second. He shifts in his position, winces as he tries to stretch his legs out, moves his weight from one knee to the other.

Another question hangs in the air, and she works her tongue around each word before she lays it on the floor in front of her. “Jaskier, what did they do to you?”

The troubadour’s mask slips away again and his eyes glaze over. “Before the torture or after?”

Geralt’s chains clink, clash together, and she doesn’t need to look at him to know that his hands are balled into fists.

“Anything you can tell me.”

Jaskier’s head lolls slightly. “The woman, Anja. She just kept asking me to say _‘yes_.’ Made me…” He takes a steadying breath. “Drink something, a lot of something.”

She leans forward to inspect the circle around him again, squints and the swirling shapes on the floor. She combs through her memories for any kind of spell, any kind of ritual that could be related.

She comes up empty.

When she looks at Jaskier again, he’s gone. Chin tucked against his chest, head bowed.

“So what did happen at the inn?” she says, turning to Geralt.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She scoffs. “Well, it seems like it might.”

He’s scowling, simmering. “I tracked him down. Apologised. He didn’t accept it, but I stayed in the tavern to drink. He came back down a few hours later, broke his lute over my head and left.”

She nods. “And how long ago was that?”

A vein in his jaw juts out as he clenches his teeth.

“Geralt…” 

“Two months,” he snaps, but his ferocity is directionless, aimed only at the stone walls and cold air.

Yennefer flexes her fingers. There’s things she could say to that, probably should say. But it’s too much to take in – the rage and the panic has all but melted away and now she’s exhausted.

“Sleep,” Geralt says, after a time, “there’s no point staying awake.”

She nods and tries to find a comfortable position laying on her side.

*

Some time passes, Yennefer isn’t sure how long. There are no windows in the room to gauge the rising and sinking of the sun. Only one person had entered the room to feed her and Geralt meagre hunks of bread and a small cup of water. Jaskier had been given nothing.

She takes stock of her body: her side aches from laying on the stone floor, she is starving, her mouth is dry, and her ankle is dire need of care. 

Jaskier mostly sleeps. In his rare moments of lucidity, he flits between making light jokes and just staring at Geralt in disbelief and awe. And in the most thick and melancholy of moments he laments over his hand and asks: _‘what’s going to happen to us?’_

She doesn’t have the heart to probe him with more questions. 

A voice that sounds very much like Tissaia’s echoes in her head: ' _you’ve gone soft, Yennefer.'_

She doesn’t get time to spiral, however, as Jaskier begins coughing, convulsing, gasping for air once more. His eyes roll up into his head and both the torches snuff out again.

She braces herself this time, tightens her fists around the pike, prepares for the inevitable pull.

It comes as a wave this time, faster and urgent. She focuses on the sensation of it – energy curling around her limbs, something akin to Chaos pulling a string from her navel _outward, toward_ Jaskier. While her own Chaos is suppressed, the reserves of it almost emptied, she can feel a thin tendril of it, coiling and uncoiling in her chest.

Then it stops just as it started, and she hears Jaskier sob from the darkness.

The door opens softly, the torches reignite, and the woman, Anja, Jaskier had called her, sweeps into the room once more.

“Honestly,” she says, adopting the tone of a disapproving mother.

 _“Help. Him,”_ Geralt growls.

She shakes her head and drops to her knees next to Yennefer, who scrambles into a sitting position and grabs the front of the woman’s dress, twists her fists into the blue silk and pulls her forward until they are nearly nose to nose.

“Relax, Yennefer,” she says, “I will take you to see Cirilla.”

“If you have hurt her-”

 _“I haven’t.”_ Her face is so close, throat and eyes and beating heart barely a breath away. Yennefer could reach out, squeeze the life out of her, gouge her eyes, sink her teeth into her milk white throat.

But she doesn’t. She can’t.

And Anja must know that because she smiles at Yennefer, bares her teeth.

Yennefer drops her hands. Anja nods.

She produced a key and the manacle falls away from her ankle. Anja forces Yennefer’s skirt above her calf, pulls her boot off and she bites her lip. The flesh of her ankle is purple and furious, and Yennefer wouldn’t be surprised if it was broken. “I will try and heal this, as well. It was an accidental injury.”

Yennefer sets her jaw and nods. “Take me to her, first.”

The woman’s grey eyes glint in the torchlight. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again, please stay safe & look after yourselves. everything sucks r/n


	4. Seven of Cups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? Ao3 user, Busdriver getting to the fucking point of this fic? Blasphemy.  
> its been a real cunt of a year hasn't it? thank u to everyone still reading this, i apologise it took me this long to get anywhere but we're here now, so  
> (on a side note, i did forget that the woman who plays Yennefer is called Anya before i named my antagonist anja, but at this point i'm just rolling with it)
> 
> also i probably should have mentioned earlier that some of this is like, book/game lore based? (not heavily lore based though). so i guess there will be potential spoilers for the show? Its not super heavy & i am playing Very Fast and Loose with it. im not sure if people care about that sort of thing
> 
> Warnings: torture/mentions of torture, canon typical violence

_Jaskier lays like that for what seems like hours, watching as bubbles of blood form on Geralt’s paling lips, as the light fades from his eyes._

_Heavy, stumbling footsteps travel down the hallway, past his door, accompanied by the low hum of a conversation and he tries to call out but his throat is so clogged with bile and horror all that comes out is a weak sob._

_The footsteps recede. A door closes. Someone downstairs laughs raucously. And Geralt keeps blinking – slower and slower._

_Jaskier's stomach clenches. Panic races through his body, making his limbs tingle and fingers twitch. He manages to slide the dead weight of his body onto the floor, ignoring the vomit that sticks to his chest._

_Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, layering the room in mist as he claws his way across the floor._

_This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to spend the rest of his life chasing the White Wolf – writing ballads and spreading tales or valour. That was his Path._

_The shadows move and pulse as the door swings open, just missing his head as it does. His breath hitches. "Please," he gasps, watching as the figure of a woman enters the room._

_She hastily drops to her knees in front of him, heavy skirts pooling around her. She takes his face in her hands and her fingers are freezing against his flushed skin. "You're okay," she murmurs softly as her grey eyes search his. "I'm a Sorceress, I can help."_

_Somehow, that doesn’t provide him with much comfort._

_The woman whips around, and he follows her gaze to a figure standing in the corner, illuminated now by the light from the hallway. They wear the shadows like armour, shrouded completely in darkness. She raises her hand at the same time the figure darts from the room, footfalls silent on the wooden floor. Jaskier can’t quite believe what he’s seeing, the world feels wrong – too fast and too slow all at once._

_“We don’t have much time,” she says, ghosting her fingertips over his forehead. Everything glows for a second. Feeling and sick heat worms its way into his body._

_She rises, grips his elbow as he scrambles to his feet. His knees buckle and he catches himself on the wall, the wood is thin and its bows under his weight._

_A hand on his shoulder makes him flinch._ _“It’s okay,” the woman says, “can you walk?”_

_He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes closed. “Please,” he breathes, raising a weak arm towards the bed._

_“Oh,” she says, with the pained sympathy of a mother inspecting a child’s skinned knees._

_She leaves his side and returns a few seconds later, cradling a blue scarf in her arms. A strand of white hair protrudes from the layers._

_He stumbles past her, slinging his lute over his shoulder as he does. It’s only then that he realises he’s wearing nothing but a soiled chemise and his small clothes. He casts a mournful glance towards his boots and silk clothes laying on the floor on the other side of the room. There just isn’t time._

_He all but falls down the stairs to the tavern, the neck of his lute draggs against the wall and plays a discordant tune as it does. This is a dance he’s done before, sweaty and half naked, falling out of windows and down stairs, with a furious cuckhold on his tail. Only this time there’s no blood singing in his veins, no glee, just cold dread._

_The woman is behind him, occasionally placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him, cooing words of encouragement. As they reach the landing, he takes a second to look into the tavern’s depths, stares at the table where he and Geralt had sat together mere hours ago._

_Geralt is gone. But another figure occupies his seat – a dark, cloudy figure._

_Before he knows what he’s doing the familiar_ twang _of lute strings breaking fills his ears, the sound of neck breaking away from body._

_The sinews and splinters of his most treasured possession litter the floor around him. The shadow catches his wrists but he's rabid with anguish, beside himself with fury and he kicks and bites until the taste of bile is washed away by the iron tang of blood. The figure stumbles backwards, says his name, flickers like it’s superimposed onto the space in front of him._

_“Jaskier.”_

_He turns. Bolts. Falls through the tavern door into the stagnant night air, where the woman is waiting for him, blue scarf still nestled in her arms. “I’m going to take you to Aretuza,” she says gripping his forearm with her free hand._

_He doubles over, sucks in shallow breaths as the dirt beneath his bare feet thrums and dances in time with the blood pounding in his ears. “Will that…can you…?” he gasps._

_She lets go of his arm and lifts his chin, so their eyes meet, her expression twisted in sympathy. “I’ll do what I can.”_

_A bang comes from inside the tavern and they both jump, turning to stare at the door._

_“Have you travelled by portal before?” she asks hastily._

_He turns to look back at her and shakes his head._

_She grimaces. “Just don’t let go of me.” She holds out her free hand in front of her, and a wave of spinning magic manifests, he grips her arm as tightly as he can. His nausea doubles, bones vibrate as they pass through the portal and as soon as his feet hit solid ground,_ _he drops to his hands and knees, sweat rolling down his spine in rivets. "Did we make it?" he gasps._

_No response._

_He repeats the question, forces it out through clenched teeth._

_A door slams. The sound of a deadlock bolt._

_When he finally looks up he realises the room is empty, save for a bucket in the corner, a torch on each wall, and a set of manacles held by chains dangling from the ceiling._

_His mouth goes dry._

_It’s only then that he realises he’s walked straight into a prison cell._

**

The manacle falls away and Yennefer expects to be lifted, _dragged_ , across the room, through hallways and across the stone floors but Anja merely opens a portal and guides her through it. The dimiritium burns and hums as she limps into another room, she glances over her shoulder just in time to see Geralt nod as the portal closes behind them. 

The room they step into is small and windowless, illuminated by a line of sconces on each wall, with a pile of rotting crates in the corner, stacked haphazardly on top of one another. There are two tables pushed up against the wall closest to Yennefer, one with a roll of bandages and salves placed on top. There is no door. At least, not one visible to the naked eye.

“I told you to take me to Ciri,” Yennefer says, turning to face Anja. In the light, Yennefer can see just how bony and thin she is. Hollow cheeks and sharp clavicles. 

“Ankle first,” Anja says motioning towards the desks.

Yennefer doesn’t protest, instead offers Anja a tepid glare before lifting herself onto the desk.

“Thank you,” she says, and picks up the roll of bandages and tub of salve before sinking to her knees and lifting Yennefer’s skirt. She gently rubs salve onto the bruised flesh and Yennefer digs her nails into her palm as pain shoots up her calf.

“What have you done to the bard?” Yennefer asks as Anja’s pale hands wrap the bandages around her ankle. 

Anja laughs softly. “I won’t bore you with all the sordid details.”

“Please. Bore me.”

Anja hums, low and light. “Your ankle isn’t broken, just twisted.” She knots the last of the bandages and tucks it into the folds, before gently patting Yennefer’s shin.

“Are you capable of answering any of my questions?”

Anja offers her a dubious smile and stands, turns her back to Yennefer. Laying both hands flat against the air in front of her, she spreads her fingers and they shake, pushing against invisible resistance. The wall fades in turn, dripping away and revealing the true length of the room behind it. Yennefer had expected an illusion, but not one so powerful that she couldn’t sense the presence of a person behind it.

Ciri is laying on a bed, her face peeking out from a layer of heavy blankets and furs, her face is so pale, it almost melds with the pillow beneath her. Yennefer jumps off the desk and pads over to her, ignoring the way her ankle still screams at her.

Her fingers hover tentatively above Ciri’s face. Her breathing is slow and easy, expression unperturbed, calm even. Yennefer takes a lock of ashen hair and curls it.

Anja comes to stand behind her, uncomfortably close. “I am the only person allowed in this room. Not a soul has touched her.” She then takes Yennefer’s hand, and Yennefer allows her to guide it towards Ciri’s forehead. A pulse of Anja’s Chaos runs through Yennefer’s veins and her blood runs cold, the magic burns like frostbite. She jerks her hand away just as Anja says, “no, let me show you.”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Yennefer says, holding her hand to her chest.

A flash of hurt crosses Anja’s face followed by a twist of contempt. “I’m doing you a _favour._ I could have left you there to _wallow_ in your dread but-” She catches herself, lets her nostrils flare just once before sliding back into her benign and noble affect.

Yennefer narrows her eyes, scrutinises the woman before her. This is a game – one she has long since lost patience for – but not one she’s forgotten how to play. “Show me then.” She proffers her hand, a false truce.

Anja scrutinises her right back before guiding her hand back down to Ciri’s forehead. The Chaos burns again but Yennefer breathes through it, allows Anja to guide her through Ciri’s body, into her mind. And she’s there, just below the surface, _alive and unharmed,_ just as Anja said. Yennefer whispers her name, _‘Ciri,’_ and allows the wave of fond recognition to course through her, to counteract the burn in her body.

The hand is lifted, the resonance broken. “You see?” Anja says, hastily wiping at her brow. “Safe. Just asleep. She will remain as such until I have need of her.”

 _“Need of her,”_ Yennefer echoes, “what _need_ could you possibly have for a _child?”_

Anja raises her hands submissively. “The same way you and I were sought by Aretuza. You know she is so much more than just a _child,_ as you say.”

Yennefer rounds on her until they are face to face. “What are you talking about?”

Anja lifts Yennefer’s wrists – lets her fingers curl around the weight of the manacles. A reminder. “You don’t know, do you? She is more than any mage, any sorceress, any of those wastrels Aretuza churned out. She has elder blood running through her veins, Yennefer. _Lara Dorren’s_ blood _,_ just like her mother and just like her great-grandmother before that.”

Yennefer narrows her eyes.

“Why do you think Nilfgaard wants her?” Anja’s voice rises an octave and she laughs. “It has nothing to do with the _crown,_ with _Cintra_. The girl is a _Source.”_

Sources were people of legend. There were only whispers of such people still existing, footnotes about them in the tomes they were forced to read at Aretuza. There had been whispers of magic in Ciri’s body, but Yennefer had assumed it was just residual from the waters of Broklion. “There’s no way,” she says.

 _“_ It’s _true._ I’ve seen it.” Anja’s eyes grow wide, distant. “I _saw_ the conjunction. I _saw_ Lara Dorren die in Dol Blathana. I watched Pavetta drown, I watched Cirilla’s first burst of power.” Her eyes snap back into focus. “I want to protect her, Yennefer, I do. I’m sorry it had to be this way, truly I am.”

“You’re insane.” Yennefer tries to pull away, but Anja moves her hands, shifts to a bruising hold on her biceps.

“You don’t understand, I have been given _power._ I can change everything. Everything Aretuza took from you, everything Kaer Morhen took from the witcher. The three of you can have a life, a _normal_ life. All you the three of you have to do is say _‘yes.’_ ”

“Drop your hands,” Yennefer warns.

Anja’s eyes widen further, and she pushes forward, breath erratic.

“Isn’t that what you _want?”_

“You know _nothing_ of my wants.”

Anja ignores her. “Pain is fleeting. This is inconsequential, merely a wrap on the knuckles in exchange for _everything_ you have ever wanted.”

“I don’t think Jaskier would agree.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she snaps, “let me show you.”

Anja leans forward and touches Yennefer’s forehead before she can protest and the room fades, folds in on itself.

Suddenly she’s standing by a fire, strong arms looped gingerly around her waist. She looks down and her heart clenches when she sees clean hands, plains of flesh free of scars and callouses, laced together on top of her stomach. Her belly is heavy and pregnant beneath her clothes. _Wrong._ Her hand ghosts over the distended flesh. She’s rooted to the spot, instead of warm she is cold. _Wrong_. Geralt is humming something behind her, a meandering tune, romantic and sentimental. It’s a song she knows. Her mind supplies the gentle pluck of a lute, and a voice that isn’t Geralt’s overlays his low timbre. Something shifts inside her. _Wrong._ Geralt’s arms tighten around her midsection and the song grows louder and louder until –

 _“-Stop.”_ The sob is torn from her throat as she stumbles backwards, falling to the floor.

“You were a _child_ when all your choices were stolen from you. The same thing happened to _me._ I can give you everything you ever wanted, Yennefer.” Anja drops to her knees in front of Yennefer, crawls towards her. “All you have to do is say _‘yes.’”_

Yennefer shakes her head, tries to shake the dregs of Anja’s Chaos out of her mind. “You’re wrong. That isn’t what I want. _”_

Anja is still talking, staring into Yennefer’s eyes. “This is _nothing._ Merely an exchange. Suffering is causal imperative to _change._ You are so strong, endure the sting, Yennefer. I promise it’s worth it.” 

Yennefer pushes Anja backwards with all the force she can muster – all the vitriol and hot indignation coursing through her, reigniting the flame of her rage. And then she feels it, a single coil of chaos, so thin and insignificant, in any other scenario it wouldn’t matter, but it’s _there,_ just under the surface.

Anja must feel it too because she surges forward and grips Yennefer’s temples. _“Sleep,”_ she whispers.

And the world fades once more.

**

The tavern is almost alive as Lambert hunches over his plate. A table of farmers chew on their sentences and play low stake rounds of Gwent, while a young, pale faced bard warbles his way through ballads in the corner. 

The bard makes eye contact with Lambert and beams in youthful reverence before plucking out the notes of a song Lambert knows all too well. He scowls in response and shoves an undercooked carrot into his mouth chewing it, open mouthed, with the indignance of a child.

The low din of noise is disrupted when the tavern’s door opens and Eskel shoulders his way into the space.

Lambert stabs a cut of ham with his fork and points it at Eskel as he comes to stand in front of Lambert’s table. “Where’ve you been?”

“We need to go,” Eskel says, casting a furtive glance around the tavern. “Get your shit from upstairs, and I’ll get the horses.”

Lambert nods and stands without protest. Abandoning his food at the table, he heads up to his room and begins the arduous yet frantic task of shoving all his possessions back into his bags. Geralt’s swords slide easily onto his back and he pockets the xenovox for good measure. The last thing he picks up is the cat school medallion that he had so delicately placed on the nightstand. He holds it in his hand for a second, lets the chain slide through his fingers like silk before slipping it around his neck and heading back downstairs.

“Where’re you going, Witcher?” One of the farmers stands and moves to block his path as he heads for the door. 

Lambert sucks his teeth and eyes the door cautiously.

“You gonna walk off with our coin and not deal with that wraith?” Another farmer, with hair like straw and sun kissed cheeks, stands next - squaring his shoulders.

“It’s not a wraith,” Lambert confesses, “but I am dealing with it. I will be back.”

The bard stops playing to listen as the first farmer holds his hand out expectantly. “I don’t trust like that.” He has working hands, black with soil and grime.

“I am dealing with it,” he says flatly. He’s tempted to mention his own loss, how this ‘wraith’ has stolen someone from him as well. But he decides against it – they wouldn’t see him as human even if he fell to his knees and sobbed. 

The farmer nods at the innkeeper, who blinks owlishly back at him. “Victor didn’t give you all that coin for you to go running off with it.”

Lambert huffs a sigh. “Yeah, alright,” he grumbles, dumping his bags on the table and sifting through them to find his coin purse. He dumps a handful of coins on the table and says: “don’t expect me to come back and tell you the fates of your families when I deal with this, though.”

“You wouldn’t be welcome back, even if you do,” the farmer retorts, “mutant.”

Lambert sets his jaw and stomps towards the exit.

Outside the weather is grizzly, overcast. There's a bite to the air and his breath comes out in short, irate puffs.

Eskel is waiting for him, already perched atop Scorpion’s saddle, with Roach’s reigns in his free hand. There’s a blanket thrown over a shape on Scorpion’s back, a distinctly human shape.

“Eskel,” he hisses, “what happened? What’s that?”

“Get on,” Eskel says, pointing at Roach.

Roach huffs and glares at Lambert, who glares right back. “I’d have an easier time running alongside the three of you.”

_“Get on.”_

“Alright, alright.” Lambert secures his bags to her saddle and slides a foot into Roach’s stirrup. She huffs again and jerks her head from side to side. “ _Don’t_ make me Axii you,” he murmurs to her.

As soon as he’s seated Eskel spurs Scorpion into a gallop, one that Lambert struggles to follow. “Wait, Eskel, _fuck.”_ Scorpion was a Zarrikanian war horse, built to be sturdy and fast, while Roach was, well, _Roach._ Though she seems to understand the urgency and follows Scorpion as best she can.

They maintain that speed for about twenty minutes before Roach stutters and slows to a canter. She’s frothing at the mouth, panting, shaking her head. 

Eskel stops a moment later, turning Scorpion around with a tug on his reigns. They’ve stopped in a small clearing, lined with thin, sad trees. “You’re shit at investigating, Lamb,” he says.

“The fucks that supposed to mean?”

Eskel slides out of Scorpion’s saddle with a shake of his head. “I went to the town healer.”

“So?”

 _“So,”_ he says, throwing the blanket off Scorpion’s back with a dull flourish that only Eskel was capable of.

“Oh.” Lambert’s eyebrows shoot up. A man, tied wrist to ankle lays over Scorpion’s back. His eyes are glazed over, unfocused. Eskel was always the best at Axii. “So we’re kidnapping now.”

**

 _A woman holds her. Soft skin and thin wrists._ Triss Merigold _. A woman she had shared a fleeting lifetime with, tangled together in silk sheets, sharing patient kisses and body heat._

_Triss runs the tip of her nose along the flesh behind Yennefer’s ear. “I’ve missed you, Yenna.”_

_Yennefer sinks into her embrace, lets her eyes slip closed. Triss’ healing hands rest on her diaphragm, following the rise and fall of her chest._

_“Would you prefer this?” The question hangs in the air, incongruous._

_Yennefer scrunches her face, tries to pull away._

_“We’ll raise Ciri together, you and I.”_

_Triss’ skin begins to bubble and darken, burning hot. The room fills with smoke, the smell of sizzling flesh._

Yennefer’s eyes snap open and she gulps air like she’s been drowning

Someone says her name. _Anja_ says her name. 

Yennefer sits up with a snarl, thick strands of hair falling into her eyes. “ _Get out of my head_.” There’s a new weight on her ankle, another dimeritium cuff. 

“That wasn’t me, Yennefer,” Anja says, the shadows of the room lengthens the gaunt of her cheeks. She’s sitting with her ankles crossed on a low chair, facing Geralt. “That’s your final answer?” Anja says.

Geralt simply stares back at her with his usual, maddening stoicism.

She sighs. Squeezes her thumb with her other hand. A vein bulges in her jaw. “I don’t want to do this.”

“That didn’t stop you before,” Jaskier says. His face is blank, the shadows under his eye thick. His hand has swollen three times its normal size. 

“You don’t understand. I’m running out of time." She points a finger. " _You_ , Geralt of Rivia, _you_ were supposed to meet Cirilla earlier. You were supposed to meet her at Broklion, and I needed you to come together naturally. This is the strongest chain of destiny in decades, centuries, three so incredibly powerful people and a singular, organic catalyst, a _flower,_ I’ve waited my whole life for this.” Her voice cracks. "I wanted to be kind, to be patient, but it all went _wrong."_

The door opens, allowing light to spill into the room. She rises from her seat, towering, gilded in harsh light. Terrible and ethereal. The two men from earlier step into the room – one with a thick layer of gauze around his neck.

And Yennefer knows, with world destroying clarity, what is about to happen. And she also knows, Geralt will relent. He won’t break but he will bend.

_Suffering is causal – integral change._

Jaskier looks between them and he knows, too. He locks eyes with Geralt, offers a wet smile and a minute shake of his head. 

Yennefer could scream. They weren’t even allowed the dignity of fighting, of falling apart. She can't let this woman manipulate Ciri, but she doesn’t know if she can bear to watch this.

Geralt and herself have bodies built, moulded, by magic, reinforced by age, heavily scarred with trauma so much so that they are numb to it. But Jaskier is soft, floral perfumes and endless hedonism – the way bards and humans should be. 

“I’m sorry,” Anja says and the ache in her voice is genuine.

Jaskier’s eyes flutter closed.

“The body breaks before the mind,” Anja says, more to herself than anyone else. 

“I will kill you,” Geralt says, short and simple.

 _The body breaks before the mind._ The final piece slots into place and Yennefer understands. One of the men grabs Jaskier by the jaw and he jerks away. Despite the cacophony of noise in the room – Geralt cursing, Jaskier snarling, Anja’s voice rising higher and higher – time seems to slow for Yennefer. “You can’t,” she whispers, “you can’t. It’s not possible.”

No one hears her. One of the men slides a knotted piece of fabric between Jaskier’s teeth and he bucks against the hands holding him, eyes wide, feral with adrenaline. Anja moves over to the circle, but she does not step inside it, doesn’t allow her body a chance to even touch it.

“You’re a fool,” Yennefer says, and this time Anja whips around, eyes just as wide and crazed as Jaskier’s.

“I’ve been so close for so long. It will work, it has to.” She lifts her fingers, and Yennefer’s tongue turns to stone in her mouth. “I won’t ask again,” Anja says sweat beading on her brow. She turns to face them once more, this time with a whip in her left hand and a long, iron poker in her right.

“If you do this,” Geralt growls, “I will not rest until I have killed you.”

“You won’t have to,” Anja implores, “everything you could ever want, I can give it to you. By the Gods, _it’s one word.”_

The only noise in the room is Jaskier’s sharp and laboured breaths.

Geralt’s lips part. Jaskier whines, shakes his head again. 

It doesn’t matter.

The whip is long enough, long enough for her to stay outside the circle, raise her arm above her head, cast one final glance at Geralt, and bring it down with a sickening crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has to be said i love a cliff hanger 
> 
> Anyway, thank you again for waiting for this chapter and for reading. Stay safe & look after yrselves 💕


	5. Synchronicity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is uh, heavy, as im sure you can imagine
> 
> i fixed the formatting lol. shockingly, knock off word software is bad 
> 
> cw: torture, canon typical violence, references to child abuse, and some gore.

There’s a scar on Jaskier’s knuckle from a time when his father had wrapped him so hard with a ruler the flesh had split.

_‘The trick is to breathe through it.’_

That’s what his sister used to say, anyway. It wasn’t until he was an adult that Jaskier had come to realise the morbidity of those little nuggets of wisdom. An older sibling teaching the younger one how to cope with corporal punishment, what a poignant little tragedy. His father had beaten literacy into him, had tried to beat his ‘idiosyncrasies’ out of him. He'd always thought this had given him a high pain tolerance. Well, higher than average. 

Unfortunately, he's come to learn that balsa-wood ruler to the knuckles is nothing compared to a lash to the spine.

On his knees in mock prayer, he’s actually fucking grateful he’s gagged – a sentiment he never hopes to express ever again – because he can’t hold back the scream that leaves his body as Anja brings the whip down onto his healing flesh. Fabric tears. The torches flicker. His bones _rattle_. White heat licks his shoulder blades.

She doesn’t give him a chance to recover before she brings it down again, catching his bicep this time and it’s reminiscent of the sting of a backhand, but so much worse. He can’t curl in on himself, can’t pull away, her men hold him upright with hand in his hair. Hidwir and the other one, the one he’d never managed to squeeze a name out of.

Both Geralt and Yennefer are just staring at him with a sense of martyred obligation. Violet and amber – side by side. Geralt’s is jaw clenched so tight the man might crack a tooth but his eyes, _gods_ , his _eyes. Anguished._

Seeing Geralt, speaking to Geralt, had offered him a sliver of hope, like a thin ray of sunshine coming through curtains on a winter's morning. He’d been so desperate to shed his grief he’d accepted the man before him as real so quickly, with barely any resistance.

Now, though, he wishes for the solitude of grief once more.

Anja is relentless. Her breath coming out in sharp puffs, until she’s heaving with exertion and Jaskier’s back is on fire. She misses, once, probably on purpose, and the tail end of the whip hits the sole of his foot.

And he sinks.

Cold hands tug him down – beyond the line of self and into the murky depths of his body. Another lash. This one dull, and he’s only logically aware of it, like watching a dream slip away.

The torches snuff out. And he sinks further and further.

_‘Don’t.’_

A wave of what he’s come to recognise as Anja’s chaos pulls him back into his body – but not without leaving claw marks in its wake.

She pulls him up, forces him to breach the surface of physicality once more and the torches relight. Vaguely, through the cotton in his ears, he can hear Geralt yelling and Anja responding, screaming back, but the words don’t sound right. The world is askew. Another lash tilts the earth’s axis and the only thing keeping him upright is the hand in his hair.

“What happens when we submit to you? What is this all for?”

“For the greater good,” Anja whispers.

*

_“_ _I_ _won’t lie, I brought you here for my own gain,"_ _the woman_ _says._

_“Yep,” he grits out, trying to grab the manacle to adjust his position, “and what might that be?”_

_She lays a hand flat on his back and he tries to flinch away, tries to control his his breath that is coming out in shallow bursts. “_ _I need something from you."_

 _His chest tightens. Panic races through his body – hot and white._ _Adrenaline_ _without an outlet. “I sort of guessed,” he half-laughs, “_ _but you could have just asked._ _I’ve been told I’m fairly agreeable._ _"_ _Strung up, like game to be bled,_ _his shoulders ache_ _and_ _only the tips of his toes are touching the floor._

_“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? I just need one word from you, just one.”_

_“Uh huh, I have a lot of those. I’m a poet, eloquence, verbosity, I have those in spades.” He catches the tip of the whip drag across the floor at his feet. “Although, I have to say, this evil villain thing you’ve got going on is quite off-putting.”_

_“I’m not the villain here.”_

_He swallows –_ hard. _Initially, t_ _hey’_ _d_ _left_ _him alone for days._ _He’_ _d_ _spen_ _t_ _most of th_ _at_ _time clawing at the door, throwing his weight against it and in_ _very_ _brief_ _and very logical moments he’_ _d_ _pull_ _ed_ _at the hinges until_ _his fingers were raw_ _._

 _Whenever he closes his eyes, Geralt is there,_ _blinking back_ _at him from the darkness._ _It wasn’t until he was half mad with hunger and thirst, absolutely desperate for stimulation, socialisation,_ anything _that this woman, the woman from the tavern had entered the room. “I’m, uh, inclined to disagree, a little bit. All the manacles and the whips seem somewhat villain-y to me.”_

 _She_ _sucks her teeth. “Do you not wish to know the fate of your White Wolf?”_

 _Squeezing his eyes shut, he bites his tongue. Holds back a fevered quip about_ villainous monologues. _She was a mage, after all, it had to be an illusion, had to be fake. There was no way Geralt was dead. “Not really.”_

_Another hand – between his shoulder blades. “I’ve spent a lot of time watching you, following your movements. I can read your mind.”_

_“Well that’s...nice.” He makes a point of conjuring up the lewdest memory he has._

_“Beneath the surface,” she_ _continues_ _, with an edge of severity. The room slides away. Geralt lies bound on a floor, next to a barrel of mead. A sword rises above him, only to come down on the meat of his neck – over and over and over._

 _Jaskier shakes his head._ “No.”

 _“Denial is only natural, I was in denial for years after my family was taken from me.” She circles around to stand in front of him,_ _tilts_ _her head._ _A_ _lock of blonde hair falls away from her shoulder and hangs freely in the empty space._

_“It’s not denial. Geralt isn’t some average warrior that could be killed so easily.” This is a truth Jaskier knows at his core._

_“It wasn’t easy, at all._ _Beheadings require_ _a lot of_ _arm strength.”_

_“Funny.”_

_“It’s true!” Her eyebrows shoot up. “I’m not very physically strong, but lucky for me I caught him by surprise.”_

_Jaskier scoffs. “_ _Liar.”_

_“The same thing happened to you, didn’t it?”_

_He points his toe, tries to ground himself. “That’s..”_

_“Different?” she supplies, “I won’t show you the gory details. That would be cruel, and dare I say,_ villainous.”

 _A shuddering breath. Jaskier closes his eyes – wills away the cold dread that blossoms in his chest. “Let me go.”_ _The adjoining_ ‘please,’ _stays on his tongue – he’s not ready to beg yet._

_“I can’t. Like I said, I need something from you.”_

_A sob bubbles in his throat and he can’t hide the way his voice shakes._ _“And that is?”_

 _Her lips thin into a sympathetic smile. “_ _You’re the catalyst for all of this. I need your words,_ a word, _I need your body, your mind. Children make wishes when they blow dandelions into the air, don’t they? They discard the stems when they’re done-”_

 _He cuts her off. “_ _Your metaphor’s a_ _bit_ _on the nose_ _.”_

 _“I_ _just need you to consent, to say_ ‘yes.’”

 _He wraps his hands around the chains above the manacles, tries to alleviate some of the pressure on his shoulders. “_ _That simple, is it?”_

_She offers a noise of assent, worries her lip between her teeth. “No, it isn’t. It’s ...more complicated. Rituals require sacrifice, and for you, that comes before consent.”_

_“Lucky me.”_

_“You_ are _lucky. You’re on the precipice of something so much bigger than yourself.”_ _Jaskier squeezes his eyes closed. “For what it’s worth – I am sorry.”_

 _“_ _Wait,”_ _he says, “_ _wait._ _”_

 _She ignores him – and brings the_ _whip down with a resounding_ _crack._

_Jaskier bites his cheek so hard his silver tongue runs red._

*

Anja drops the whip, after a time and it coils around his feet like a snake. Anja’s men release their grip and he curls inward and swallows – throat raw.

“We aren’t your _pawns,”_ Geralt spits.

“You won’t be _pawns,_ you will be _free,”_ Anja says, hint of hysteria creeping into her voice.

Jaskier looks up, shakes his head weakly, exhaustion bleeding from his pores.

Yennefer tries to catch his eye, but he looks away, unable to focus on anything beyond the ache in his body.

“If you just _explained-”_

“There’s nothing to _explain,_ I made myself clear.”

Jaskier’s eyes dart around as though they’re vibrating in his skull. He looks at the stones above Geralt, the stones beneath his knees, the crack in the wall behind Yennefer. _Yennefer_. Surreptitiously, her hand moves through the air and she places two fingers underneath her eyes. He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and settles his gaze, meets her eyes once more. She blinks, slowly, like a cat offering its trust.

Hidwir’s hand slides down to settle on the back of his neck. Yennefer is exuding her own gravity, forcing him to follow her lead as she drags her eyes across the space and turns to look at the torches before meeting his eye again.

Jaskier doesn’t have the capacity to entertain complex thought, but he does recall her words.

_‘You can’t. It’s not possible.’_

She knows. She understands.

She does it again, stares at him and then back at the torches, calm and focused.

It clicks.

He’s put them out more than once by accident, and something inside him has changed. There’s something moving in the dark, something he’s been trying to fight. It wouldn’t be a stretch to use that _thing,_ that Chaos that Anja injected into his body.

His vision tunnels, all the noise in the room fades away.

Sometimes, when he’s alone with his lute, he loses all sense of reality, all sense of time, until something – usually Geralt – drags his focus back to the physical world. It’s generally untameable, something that occurs moment to moment, but now he channels that feeling onto the flickering torches on the wall. Inhaling through his nose, all the way down into his stomach he dips his fingers into the depths of himself, reaches for those cold hands – and they reach back.

There’s something foreign inside of him that this woman put there – but that doesn’t mean he can’t embrace it.

The torches flicker. Once, twice. The flame leaps, curls in on itself.

And then, they snuff out.

*

 _The sacrifice, this woman had mentioned, came in_ _fours_ _._ _Four_ _lashes._ _Four_ _nails pulled from the bed. Each, followed by a glowing palm laid atop his flesh._ _But now,_ _as he squints down at the steaming mug in the woman’s hand – he definitely doesn’t want to start another cycle of_ _four_ _._

 _“I generally like to know a person's name before we share a drink,” Jaskier says,_ _wrinkling his nose._ _The smell is reminiscent of the jellied eels that the people of Undvik consider a delicacy, underscored by a beautiful bouquet of human shit._

 _“_ _Take it.”_

 _Gingerly, he presses his back against the wall_ _and it’s_ _cool against_ _the welts on his skin_. _His hands are throbbing in time with each pump of his heart._ _“I haven’t said the magical word yet, so if this is poison, you’ve really fucked up,” he says._

 _“_ _Exactly,” she says, “that should be reassuring.”_

_Narrowing his eyes, he swallows. His limbs are weighed down, whole body heavy._

_“Anja,” she says, after a long moment, “my name is Anja.”_

_“ I was joking,” he says, bitterly._ _She does this, from time to time, sits with him, tries to_ _talk_ _as though they were old friends. It makes Jaskier’s skin crawl._

_She sighs. “Don’t make me force you.”_

_His hand flies to his chest._ “I _can’t make you do anything._ I _am in chains. You have all the control here,” he says, shaking the chain that connects him to the wall for emphasis._

_She lifts the mug to her lips and swallows a mouthful._

_Jaskier raises his eyebrows expectantly. “And?”_

_“Honeyed wine,” she says, thrusting the mug forward._

_Jaskier squints at her, curls his lip in derision. “_ _I’m already being tortured, you don’t need to insult me.”_

_“I’m not trying to insult you.”_

_“Then you’re failing. Miserably_ _, at that.”_

_She nods. “I suppose I am.”_

_A shadow moves in the corner. A flash of amber. He jerks his head to the side, stares at the floor and clenches his jaw. It’s not real._

_“You_ _know, you_ _remind me of someone I used to know, a very long time ago,” she says, wistfully._

_“Did you torture them, too?”_

_She sighs and shuffles forward. “_ _No, I didn’t._ _But_ _she did teach me the recipe for this, it’s to stimulate healing and help with pain relief.”_

 _Jaskier sighs. “_ _Fine,” she says, snatching the drink out of her hand. The concoction sloshes and some of it spills down the side of the mug._ _Lifting the mug to his lips, he closes his eyes, steels himself. A drop, the tiniest drop, hits his lips and he shudders, before running his tongue along his lip to gauge the flavour. It’s sweet and warm. Just like honeyed wine. A jarring contrast its foul aroma._

_He swallows a mouthful, then another. He's starving and his body welcomes the potion as it comes to settle on his stomach._

_Anja cocks her head as she watches him._

_He drains the last drop and licks his lips. “What did I tell you?” she says, taking the mug from his hand._

_He doesn’t offer her a response, merely raises an eyebrow and scowls._

_“I’ll bring you another in a few days.” She stands and dusts off her dress. “_ _Get some rest.”_

 _A warm haze clouds his mind as he watches her leave the room._ _The sting in his back turns into a dull throb. The rawness of his fingers fades. And his frayed nerves soften. But the shadow in the corner remains,_ _flickering, blinking. Staring._

*

Those hands are clawing up his throat now, cold and awful.

 _“Stop,”_ Anja’s hisses from the darkness, “it’s not _yours_ to use.”

She lights the torches again and he briefly mourns the loss of the darkness, because when he looks up at her, her face is twisted in contempt, knuckles white around the iron rod in her hand.

She drops to a crouch, brings her face as close to his as she can. She can’t touch him, not with her own hands. She was so careful not the breach that little circle. Hidwir grabs a fistful of his hair and forces his head forward. But he can still see the torches in his periphery.

Instead of staring at them, he stares at Yennefer – and she stares back. He never thought he’d call her presence _‘comforting,’_ but – desperate times.

She begins to draw circles in the dark fabric of her skirts, a grounding force, a place to centre his focus. There’s a gaping hole in his knowledge of Chaos and magic, something he’d never sought to rectify – he’s not a mage, he’s a poet. _But,_ if there’s one thing he knows it’s _feeling._ Yennefer’s fingers swirl around and around and he recalls the way Anja’s Chaos feels. A biting chill on a winter's morning. A spiders hairy legs crawling along his arm. Cold dread.

Yennefer’s Chaos is as solid as an oak, covered in sap. The howl of wind in a cave. Tempered.

The Chaos that sloshes within him _whispers,_ begs to leave the confines of his body.

Letting the world fade away, he listens to the voices, allows those cold hands to push on the lines of his body. Yennefer’s fingers continue to move, _around and around_. The torches pulse – and the one to his left goes first, while Yennefer keeps circling, _around and around_ until they all tumble back into the darkness.

A sigh. Hot breath tickles his cheek. Light fills the space once more. Only this time it isn’t the torches. Anja cradles a soft lick of flame in her palm. The orange light allows their shadows to dance freely along the stone walls – unperturbed by the glowing tip of the iron poker she’s holding in her other hand.

Anja slowly turns her head towards Geralt and Yennefer, mocks the way Yennefer had guided Jaskier not moments ago. “This one's on you, Yennefer,” she whispers, her tortured façade splinters, allowing them to see the cold and empty woman below. “I will stick this down his _throat.”_

*

 _“_ _Hello, Milosz_ _," he says, a_ _s_ _tray of meats and vegetables is shoved towards him. “Are we having beef tonight? Or mystery meat again?”_ _He shifts forward, as far as the manacle_ _around his ankle allows_ _._ _“Pork, maybe?_ _There’s a vendor in Oxenfurt who makes the most beautiful pork pies_ _, so beautifully crisp.”_ _He flashes a coy smile up at the_ _man_ _._ _“Makes your mouth water,_ _huh?_ _”_

 _Milosz’_ _eyes flick up to meet his._ _Jaskier_ _runs his tongue across his teeth, stopping to probe a chipped incisor._ _“Never been to Oxenfurt,”_ _Milosz_ _grunts back._

 _“You ought to,” Jaskier says, crossing his legs and pulling the_ _tray_ _towards him. “_ _Don’t listen to what anyone tells you – it’s nicest in the spring_ _.”_

 _He_ _receives_ _a dull noise of assent in response and_ _his_ _heart_ _clenches_ _._ _A noise so familiar coming from such a foreign_ _mouth._

 _“Where are you from, then?”_ _He waves the wooden spoon both for emphasis and to hide the way his hands shake._

_“I’m not supposed to tell you.”_

_“Come on,_ _what am I going to do?” he says_ _through a mouthful of mystery meat_ _, “you’re my only entertainment here._ _”_

 _Milosz narrows his eyes, tilts his head to the side. “_ _Yspaden_ _,”_ _he_ _offers_ _after a moment_ _,_ _and Jaskier’s face splits into a warm grin._

_“Now if you do a dance and sing me a ballad, I might be inclined to call us even.”_

_Milosz sucks in a breath. “You’re eating slowly on purpose, Bard.”_

“Am I? _I hadn’t noticed.”_ _He chews thoughtfully._ _“You ought to sit with me, then, it might_ _make me go faster.”_

 _With a sigh, Milosz lowers himself until he’s sitting on the floor in front of Jaskier._ _He’d spent weeks wearing all of Anja’s nameless guards down, badgering them with questions_ _until they actually spoke to them –_ _until there was a hint of exasperated trust in their replies._

_“No more questions,” he cautions, but there’s a faint smile on his lips._

_“_ _No_ _more questions,” Jaskier repeats, and it takes a concerted effort to hide the tremor in his voice. He’s never been this close before._

_They sit in silence for a time, as Jaskier forces the food to stay in his stomach. His heart is pounding so hard it may as well be audible to the man opposite him._

_“I know you said no more questions,”_ _he says, “but I have to a wonder – once you’re done with all_ _this._ _”_ _He waves his hand. “_ _Is there a missus you go home to?”_

_Milosz scowls._

_Jaskier_ _slides a_ _turkey_ _bone into his other hand, one he’d kept hidden in his sleeve –_ _one_ _he’d managed to shave down into a shiv._

 _“_ _No,” Milosz says._

 _Jaskier clicks his tongue. “That’s too bad.”_ _Sweat is bleeding from his palms._ _They always took the spoon_ _from him_ _. He’d spent a week sliding bones into his sleeves, feverishly rubbing the_ _m_ _against the stone floor,_ _only to have them snap and splinter in his hands. This was the only one that had worked._

 _Jaskier slaps a hand down on Milosz’ shoulder. “_ _Handsome thing like you should have a warm body to curl up to at night.”_

 _“Don’t do that,”_ _Milosz_ _says._ _Jaskier grins in turn –_ _and there’s a moment, where the air thins and he just stares into Milosz’ brown eyes,_ _as_ _though they’re suspended in time – and just as Milosz looks as though he might pull away, Jaskier yanks his_ _armoured_ _shoulder downward_ _and_ _jams the shiv right into his eye._

 _Milosz_ _screams_ _, claws at Jaskier’s hand._ _He doesn’t_ _relent_ _. Doesn’t_ _think._ _Blood pounds in his ears as he fumbles with the ke_ _ys_ _on Milosz’ belt_ _, there’s_ _f_ _ive of them and his hands are so slick with sweat and blood the first one slides out of his hand before he can even try to fit it into the lock on the manacle._

 _Milosz_ _grabs his ankle, digs his nails into exposed flesh. Jaskier kicks him, his heel connecting with_ _Milosz’_ _nose. Cartlidge and blood sprays across the floor. His eyes roll up into his head, his skulls lolls on the floor._

_Jaskier scrambles backwards as far as he can, ring of keys clenched in his hand so tight they leave indents in his palm._

_The first two keys don’t fit._ _Fumbling, the third key scrapes the manacle, letting a coil of metal fall away from the surface. That one doesn’t fit either. Nor does the fourth, or the fifth. In a panic, he forces a key into the hole, rattles it around desperately until the key bends._

 _“Please,”_ _he whispers._

 _The door creaks open. He_ _abandons_ _the key, turning now to pull desperately on the chains,_ _as if now, after all this time, they’ll finally come away from the wall._

 _“_ _Jaskier.”_ _Anja stands in the doorway, haloed by light from the hallway._ _“_ _I did tell you I can read your mind.” A shadow moves behind her – a strand of white hair vanishes into the hallway._

 _He shakes his head, balls his fists._ _“Please.”_

 _“_ _You’re so fascinatingly human,” she says, closing the door behind her._ _“There’s no way out of here,” she says, softly, as though trying to calm a rabbit caught in a snare, “it’s warded, all the doors have different keys.”_

 _He digs his palms into his eyes until stars explode behind the lids. “Where is_ _Geralt?”_

_“I think you know the answer to that question.”_

_“You_ _killed_ _him._ _You_ _killed_ _Geralt._ _” It’s an admission and a dare._ Lie to me.

_She laughs – the same cadence as a child picking daisies. “Yes.”_

_“Why?” A hollow whisper._

_“Because,” she says,_ _looking up_ _to stare at the ceiling,_ _“it was necessary.”_

*

It appears, Geralt has run out of threats. He tugs desperately on the chains and he’s never looked so small. Beside him, Yennefer’s fist is curled around the top of the pike as though she’s grounding lightning.

Jaskier never believed in the Gods. He does believe in Melitele and her cult – but that was for entirely different reasons. Despite this, he finds himself praying – begging for divine intervention. There’s probably some way to use his Chaos to help them, some way to escape, but he doesn’t know how.

Anja is still burning the tip, her eyes boring into his.

His chest tightens. His eyes brim with tears and when he turns to look at Geralt the world shifts, like ocean crashing to shore, like a summer storm on the coast. How ironic.

A fine sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead. He doesn’t want Geralt or Yennefer to concede – but equally, in a very realistic way, he doesn’t want an iron poker shoved down his throat. His lip quivers, his shoulders start to shake. There’s a Child Surprise waiting for Geralt, just out of their reach, a _family_ lying beyond these stone walls. It isn’t fair.

The dam breaks. Whimpers turn into open sobs and he wails against the fabric in his mouth. Posturing is pointless under such flippant sadism.

Anja closes her palm over the flame, plunging them all back into darkness. The only thing that moves is that glowing fucking tip as it moves closer and closer to him.

Chains rattle. A hand in his hair. A pair of hands holding his shoulders.

 _“He’s just a Bard.”_ Geralt’s voice from the darkness – pleading. An aching memory of things long since passed.

The tip presses into his collar bone. “Not anymore.”

*

_Once, early into their tenuous relationship – Geralt of Rivia had lost his boot in a sinkhole. It wasn’t something Jaskier had bothered to note, originally. No, his journals were full of tales of triumph and bent reality, crude depictions of monsters that he only observed from a very, very safe distance. A lost boot was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things – even though it made the already cantankerous witcher even more, well, cantankerous._

_It only became something of importance when Geralt missed a step not hours later and sliced his foot open on a rock. And then, moments later, they were accosted by a very angry waterhag. A waterhag Geralt had no trouble dispatching._

_It wasn’t until the pair set up camp for the night, long after the sun had set, that Jaskier inspected the offending foot by firelight and it had been far worse than he could have ever anticipated. The sole was torn open from heel to toe, while a dark purple bruise marred the rest of his flesh._

_“Why didn't you say anything?” Jaskier had asked, half hysterical._

_Geralt had merely grunted and said: “if I’d have slowed we would have died.”_

_That night, as Geralt slept, Jaskier scrawled a flyaway thought into his journal. One of the many pretentious musings of a poet watching a warrior’s everyday antics._

Bruised feet will carry soldiers to battle. Sliced soles carry witchers through their own wars everyday.

_He hadn’t elaborated, hadn’t even bothered to finish the thought before closing his journal. But now, the memory rises to the surface of his mind as Jaskier’s own bruised and scabbed feet drag across the floor below._

_And he has to accept he is not a soldier. His feet can’t carry him anymore._

“Yes,” _the word_ _falls from his_ _mouth like_ _the first leaves of autumn, withered and dead._ _He hangs his head._

 _Anja_ _whips around. Blinks at him. Her lips part._ _“_ _Say it again,” she whispers._

“Yes,” _he says again, “whatever you want. Take it from me.”_

 _She closes the gap between them in three long strides. “Oh, Jaskier,” she says,_ _“_ _thank you_ _._ _You’ve made the right choice.”_

 _She raises her arms. Her throat bobs as she swallows. He flinches away as her arms, her hands, come to loop around his torso. He can’t help it – a sob, so pitiful_ _and small,_ _escapes his_ _lips_ _. She leans into him, lays her ear flat against his pounding heart._ _His breath hitches, lip quivers. This embrace, such a perversion of intimacy. “_ _You’ve made the right choice,” she says again and her words vibrate against his hollow chest._

*

He doesn’t sink. She doesn’t let him. She holds his consciousness in her other hand. And he’s forced to just _feel_ it. No noise leaves his mouth. Months worth of his screams and sobs have buried themselves in the stone walls - he doesn't have a sound left in him. The human body, the human _mind_ isn’t meant to endure like this.

The sound of it, _the smell. Burning flesh._

“Yes.” Geralt’s voice floats over to him on a haze, he doesn’t register it at first. He’s so consumed by the centre of pain burning into his chest.

Anja drops the poker to the floor and it lands a little too close to his hand. His eyes flutter closed as relief washes through his body – despite his brains objections.

“Yes,” Geralt snarls again, the word catching in his throat, turning the ‘e’ into something animalistic.

“Leave,” Anja says and her men stand, the plates of their heavy armour clashing together as they walk across the room to the door. A stream of light denotes their departure – Anja’s face is still so close to his, undulating and demonic in the thin light. Her dress rustles and she stands with a sigh. “We didn’t have to go through all of this.”

“Fuck. You,” Geralt says.

She huffs a laugh. “It’s not over,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “When the time comes, you will tell Ciri she must do the same. Once that happens, Yennefer, I need you to do the same. We can go through this as many times as it takes.”

The silence that answers her is tangible.

Jaskier tilts his head up to the heavens. Anja releases her grip on his mind and soft footfalls carry her across the floor to the place where Geralt is chained.

“I can’t force Ciri to do anything,” Geralt says, voice low, warning.

“Don’t force her,” Anja says, “just tell her.” A portal opens, offering a glimpse into another room. “I will be back. I...I need to prepare.”

_*_

_Of course it doesn’t end with a single word. Consent is always the beginning of any dalliance, isn’t it?_

_Anja paints a circle around him – in the same navy she always wears._ _Feverishly_ _, she scrawls symbols_ _and flourishes with her fingers, places her entire hand in a bucket of paint, occasionally nudging_ _the handle of a_ _paintbrush that sticks out from_ _the top._

_A bitter laugh bubbles in his chest. To throw himself on the proverbial sword – and no one was around to see it? Maybe that was the real torture. To pass – without consequence. Maddening._

_When she’s done she wipes her hands on her dress. “You’re going to do so much,_ _to_ be _so much.” Pinching her sleeve between her thumb and forefinger she pulls back her sleeve to reveal her forearm. Her skin is thick and scarred as though it had been pulled away from the bone – forced to heal over and over again. “_ _You’re through the worst now.”_

 _She places her hand on his forehead – and –_ he sinks.

The heavens open up. The world splits. Layers of reality collide. Humans steal Chaos. Elves are slaughtered en mass. A woman cradles a newborn atop a hill. Kingdoms rise. And they fall. A young boy is gifted to Kaer Morhen. A girl with a twisted spine is sold to Aretuza. A family is flayed alive. The boy submits to the trial of the grasses – but Jaskier watches his own body bend and break – watches his own eyes turn amber. The witch is born anew. A child with ancient power is born. A mother dies at sea – the father runs to be reborn as an Emperor. His sister smuggles his first lute into Lettenhove castle. His mother wades out to sea. He sheds his name, his titles. He dies. Is reborn. Blooms as a flower.

_He sinks._

_Geralt’s shoulders. Black tie in his hair. Rain sliding down his swords. A woman on horseback._ Yennefer _on horseback. Her arms around a cloaked body._ _They turn in unison._

_He screams – ‘stop haunting me’ – but there’s no air in his lungs._

_He sinks._

_And the Witcher, the Witch and the_ _Lion Cub_ _follow._

_He sinks._

_Then he rises. Blue eyes snap open._

_And the torches snuff out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i love a parallel 
> 
> i did ask my housemate who used to work at a butchers if she thought you could make a turkey bone into a shiv (she asked me no follow up questions) and she said: 'maybe,' so suspension of disbelief etc
> 
> i am going to try my best to not take another whole month to get one chapter of this done. i literally have it all planned out and i have a part 2 i want to write, as well but everything is terrible right now so idk. i am notoriously late to everything 
> 
> look after yourselves !


	6. The Nightmare Swirls and Churns, Unending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. So, there are some Big Reveals (ish) in this chapter & im aware theres probably a plot hole u cld drive a truck thru b/c i had to shift some stuff around as i went. i am, however, choosing to ignore them bc this fic lives rent free in my head atm and i feel Almost Insane with how much i want it done lol  
> im never in my life making anything this complicated again ~~(that is a lie i absolutely will) ~~~~~~  
>   
>  cw: ptsd/dissociative episode, canon typical violence  
> 

Yennefer had seen her fair share of brains before. Splattered at her feet. Cradled in her hands for study. Delicate things – with deep crevices and folds that interweave like ley lines.

Trauma slips between those crevices, burrows its way into the empty spaces like worms digging in soil. Now, as her lungs fill with smoke and her hands _burn –_ as the bottle shatters – she can feel them wiggling around in those crevices, gnawing away at her mind, feeding on her sanity.

She’s aware of herself slipping away into a memory, and she’s powerless to stop it.

Sense memory is a potent and foul thing – and burning flesh has such a distinct smell.

“ _Yennefer.”_ Geralt’s voice. It’s far away, as though he’s speaking to her through a portal.

She stands atop that hill, rage and anguish intertwining, snaking up her spine. She unleashes herself upon the soldiers below. A geyser. A lifetime of restraint splinters as fire erupts from her hands.

“Yennefer!”

Sabrina’s empty eyes. A blade in her gut. _Triss’ dress set alight._

‘ _Yennefer.’_ It isn’t Geralt’s voice, this time. It isn’t even a voice. _It’s a thought._ A wave of Chaos. Jaskier clumsily stumbles through her mind, searches for her in amongst flames. And when he finds her, standing atop that hill, mouth open in a silent scream – he closes his hands around hers and their eyes meet. _‘Breathe._ _’_

Everything stops. The memory remains, but the scenery is still – as though it’s frozen in time.

 _'_ _Jaskier,’_ she whispers, like a ghost carrying his name on the breeze. Chaos was only _chaotic_ in name – it was a science, adhered to rules and restrictions – this, _this_ defied all the things she thought she knew.

His face obscures the battlefield and she searches his eyes. The thought forms before she can stop it: _‘_ _w_ _hy didn’t you_ say _anything_ _about this_ _?’_

A vicarious ache, a deep shame that burgeons out to her fingertips.

‘ _I think I brought you here.’_

Then his presence vanishes, leaving only a shadow on the scorched plains of her mind.

Her fingers move without command and she absently draws a circle in her skirt. Just one, just enough to tickle her thigh, enough to remind her brain that she has a body. The darkness unfurls around her. She says his name again: _“Jaskier,”_ and her tongue is still heavy in her mouth, dry as a bone.

A muffled groan from the dark. Anja had left without taking the gag out of his mouth – just another layer of humiliation he was forced to endure.

She’s tempted to ask him to light the torches again, but the dread gnawing at her stomach gives her pause. Whatever Chaos Anja had put inside him was _growin_ _g –_ stealing the empty spaces in his body, sliding between those crevices like water _._ She had felt it, a burst of it, the first time Anja had cracked the whip against his back – ichorous and _terrifying_.

The air suddenly grows thick, as though it was about to rain. A soft moan fills the air followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. Geralt’s chains clink, his knees shift on the floor.

“Not dead,” Geralt rasps, his voice slicing through the dark, “he’s just passed out.”

“Okay,” she says – because it’s all she knows how to say. She’s surprised he managed to stay upright as long as he did.

“Yennefer,” Geralt says after a beat of silence, “you said you knew.”

She works the muscle in her mouth, moves her jaw in circles, forcing her saliva glands to lubricate her tongue. “I did.” A memory – steeped in black pepper and patchouli oil. Thumbing through pages of a grimoire she’d pried from underneath a loose floorboard in Aretuza’s massive library. She sighs. “She’s trying to force another conjunction of the spheres.”

She can almost see his brow knit together, can almost hear his mind ticking over.“Is that even possible?”

Raising a hand to her forehead, she spreads her fingers out across her face. Oil and smeared kohl grease her fingers in kind.“I imagine there is. The conjunction showed us that there are hundreds of worlds beyond our own. Chaos is not natural within humans, if we stole Chaos from the elves, forced magic to align with human bodies, I can imagine there is a way to manipulate planetary forces in the same way.”

Yennefer had stumbled on the book by chance. Teenagers at Aretuza were still teenagers and she had only been in the library to hide a jar of fruits for fermenting. Swapping the jar for the tome, she’d hurried back to her room and had spent hours inhaling the musings of a mad woman. Each page was filled with notes about the conjunction, with hypotheticals about the _how’s_ and _why’s_ of it all. Inquisitive and inane in the beginning, the delicate scrawl became hurried as Yennefer had turned the pages. All the words have long since faded but a single line – written in the margins of the last page – had always stuck with her: _the body breaks before the mind._

Days later, Tissaia had called her into her office, the tome in the centre of her desk. There was no lecture or punishment, only an expression of restrained horror. _‘Forget what you have seen in these pages. There are some things that_ _should be left in the dark.’_

She doesn’t assume the book had belonged to Anja. The woman was young and that book was ancient.

Geralt hums in response. “Then what does our consent have to do with this?”

Furrowing her brow, Yennefer tries to conjure the pages of that book in her mind. _‘Destiny is Chaos in its most chaotic form.’_

“She said we are the strongest chain of destiny she’s seen in years.” She pauses, drags her fingers absently across the floor, lacing together another sentence: ‘ _after the cataclysm, everything changed. In order to thin the space between worlds_ _great sacrifices must be made.’_ “She intends to harness destiny as a way to tear a hole in the world. Chaos has a give and take. This is us giving and her taking.”

Her words seem to echo in the small space and she finds her mouth moving to capture the momentum – to stop the silence before it can coil around her. “It’s a common theme in the stories of goetia. Demons need to be summoned through ritual, and one must verbally consent before they are granted entry to the body.”

“That’s not how demons work,” he offers, flatly, and she almost laughs – the practicality of his mind is both endlessly endearing and exasperating.

“No, it isn’t, but I imagine it’s symbolic in some way. Similar to how a djinn can only be released once all three wishes are completed. There are rules for these things.”

A grunt – one she’s decoded as meaning, _‘okay, I understand,’_ – followed by another question, one she doesn’t yet have an answer for: “what has she done to Jaskier?”

Running a hand through her hair, she catches a knot and tugs at it, letting those sharp bursts of pain ground her. Jaskier was the ‘catalyst,’ as Anja had put it. He’d spent two decades traipsing around the Continent with barely a care in the world, and in turn, had drawn the four of them together in an act of cosmic idiocy. But that didn't explain where this Chaos was coming from. She could hazard a guess - tell him it was destiny, or perhaps Anja's Chaos, but she would be lying. There were too many variables and not enough answers.

So instead, she admits the truth: “I don’t really know, but I think she needed him to think you were dead. People are more open to letting things in when they’re in pain.”

Her words don’t echo this time. They simply hover in the tangible darkness.

“I shouldn’t have left him there.” A hoarse whisper, dripping with guilt.

“No,” she says, bluntly, “you shouldn’t have. But it doesn’t matter now. Geralt I need you sharp. We are far more capable than you think, do not sell us short to fuel your own self hatred.”

She hears him sigh – but the breath catches in his throat, turning the sound into more of a growl than a sigh. Yennefer rubs her sternum. They’re both at a standstill, paralysed under the weight of the mounting inertia.

“Your assent bought us _time,”_ she continues, tentatively, “and there will be time for apologies later. She’s getting more frantic. She will make a mistake, and when she does we both need to be prepared.”

“Any thoughts on that?” he asks, with a sarcastic edge, tugging on the chains of emphasis.

“Potentially,” she starts, thinking back to the single coil of Chaos that nestled in her chest. “I could redirect someone else's magic.” She’d almost forgotten about it. Only the most powerful mages could access Chaos after being affected by dimeritium and as much as it pained her to say, she didn’t count herself among those powerful few – _but_ there was no denying it was there. Just below the surface. “Most likely Jaskier’s, whatever that _is_ – it’s untamed and raw. I would need to find a way to touch him, though.”

“Okay,” he says, and she can only assume – that’s all he knows how to say.

  
  


*

“So we’re kidnapping now?”

“No.” Eskel sighs. “Yes. Maybe...” He rubs his eye with his knuckle. “Does it count if he’s a Nilfgaardian spy?”

“Ethically or subjectively?” Lambert asks, sliding down from Roach’s saddle. “Because I don’t mind, all this intrigue is good for my skin.”

“Mm. Not good for your hairline, though,” Eskel murmurs back.

Lambert scowls before turning to inspect the man still tied on Scorpion’s back. A line of drool slides down the man's chin and a purple bruise dabbles his cheek from where his face had clearly hit Scorpion’s rump while they rode.

“So the town healer is a spy.”

“No, the town healer is a traitor.” Eskel points at the man. “This is just a regular spy. He was living in the healers basement.”

Lambert clicks his tongue. “Eskel, you dog. What are you doing stealing into old women’s basements?”

“She wasn’t old,” he retorts.

Lambert scoffs and rolls his shoulders. “Whatever, _slattern.”_

A wave of frustration rolls off of Eskel’s body. “Relax, would you?” Lambert says, slapping the back of his hand against Eskel’s bicep. “Tell me what you found.”

Eskel’s lips thin into a hard line and he tilts his head forward, allowing the shadows to fill the hollows of his scars. “Nilfgaard is looking for Geralt.”

Lambert’s eyebrows shoot up and he absently grabs his elbow. “Oh? What’s the miserable fucker got himself into now?”

With a shrug, Eskel produces a dagger from a sheathe on his belt. “Hence the kidnapping.” Lambert’s lips quirk into a wry smile.

Eskel slices through the rope that connects the mans wrists and anklesbefore hefting him off Scorpion’s back. A ribbon that had been tied loosely in his hair unfurls and falls to the floor.Eskel drops him against a tree and a soft _‘oof’_ escapes his mouth, though his eyes remain dull, still thoroughly entranced.

Eskel sinks into a crouch in front of the man and Lambert bites back a quip when he hears Eskel’s knees creak. The man before them is all sharp lines, high cheekbones, a thin nose, dressed in black with yellow embellishments. A caricature of a Nilfgaardian spy.

“Doesn’t look like he was trying very hard to fit in,” Lambert says, crossing his arms.

Eskel hums in agreeance. He snaps his fingers in front of the man’s face and his head jerks upward. “Are you gonna answer all of my questions?”

His lips part and he nods, slowly.

“Why is Nilfgaard looking for Geralt of Rivia?”

“The Lion Cub of Cintra. He claimed the law of surprise. The girl is missing.”

Lambert wets his lips. “Geralt never mentioned a child surprise.”

“You said there were three scents in the forest. They were headed to Kaer Morhen, it would make sense that he found her,” Eskel says, “did you find Geralt?”

The man shakes his head and coarse, black hair grazes his shoulders in turn. “No. There was another witcher in Rakverelin. Not the White Wolf, another one. Yes, another one...”

“You found nothing else?”

“No...” His brow furrows. A flicker of consciousness. “No.”

“ _Axii_ him again,” Lambert says.

Eskel spares him a sideways glance, tinged with irritation. “Not yet.”

Huffing, Lambert rolls his eyes and looks over his shoulder back into the line of trees.

“Did you report this to someone?”

“Yes, I...” He shifts uncomfortably. His eyes dart around. The spell is waning. “A Sorceress,” he grits out through clenched teeth.

“Hey!” Eskel snaps his fingers again. “Eyes here. She _what?_ ”

Furrowing his brow, the spies eyes glide over the man before him. He grinds his teeth and a shiver runs down Lambert’s spine as he recoils from the sound. It’s a noise that always makes him want to tear out his eardrums.

 _“Witchers,”_ the spy snarls as he scrambles to stand. Eskel slams a heavy hand on his shoulder and pins him back against the tree.

“ _She. What?”_

A biting chill rushes through the trees, grey clouds rush across the sky, mirroring both Eskel and Lambert’s urgency from the sky above. It was going to rain soon.

Neither of them had said it in words – but they were both _worried._ Lambert knew that one day Eskel and Geralt would not come back to Kaer Morhen – that one day, they would be too slow, too injured to survive one of the beasts they were built to kill. It was something they had all been forced to accept from a young age.

But that didn’t mean either of them were ready to mourn another brother.

The spy tongues his cheek with fervour, biting down on the flesh. And just as Lambert is about to draw his own _axii_ into the air – a familiar scent snakes up his nose, intermingled with the iron tang of blood.

_Almonds._

Eskel catches the spies jaw with a deft hand, squeezing his cheeks in a bone breaking grip. _“Don’t.”_

_Too slow._

The spies throat bobs. Lambert levels a kick at the man’s ribs.

_Too fucking slow._

Saliva sprays across Eskel’s face as Lambert’s boot connects with his ribs – shattering them on impact.

“Poisons doesn’t kill instantly, we still have time,” Eskel says, dropping his hand – now slick with spit and blood. Hastily, he drags his fingers through to air, conjuring another _axii._

Consciousness fades from the man’s eyes once more. “Did you find the path to Kaer Morhen?” Eskel asks, his voice rising until he’s nearly shouting.

“N-No.” Foam forms at his lips and his breathes come in sharp and ragged.

“Ask him where the Sorceress is,” Lambert says.

“Where is the Sorceress?” Eskel repeats. The spies lips are turning blue, his body is starting to shake.

"Ard Carraigh,” he says, and each sound is elongated, “she...” A stuttering rasp. Not even Eskel’s spell could halt the spread of poison.

With a final, faint, _thump_ the spies heart stops, leaving only fluttering silence in its stead.

“ _She what?”_ Eskel cries, slamming his hand down onto the tree, just above the spies head.

Lambert snarls. A drop of rain hits his forehead as he kicks at one of the surrounding trees. “I _told_ you to _axii_ him again!”

“Human minds are _fragile._ You can’t just _axii_ people over and over again, it damages them.”

“ _Who care_ _s_ about human minds! We had to kill him, anyway!” Lambert says, rounding on Eskel and jabbing a finger into the air.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting into it with you,” Eskel says, rising from his position back to his full height.

“It _does_ matter, actually. He said they were looking for the path to Kaer Morhen, don’t you think that _maybe_ there would be _other_ spies, in _other_ northern towns nearby, looking for the same thing?”

Eskel frowns.

“And don’t you think,” Lambert continues, throwing his arms out to the side, “that _maybe_ they might all be reporting to the same person? There isn’t a massive Nilfgaardian army nearby for them to just _pop in to.”_

Eskel’s lips part, and the mass of scar tissue moves with them. Realisation dawns his face. “Oh.”

“Yeah, exactly. _Oh.”_ Lambert drops his arms. “You’re really fuckin’ dense sometimes, you know that?”

“We’ll have to tell Vesemir,” Eskel says, dumbly.

Lambert scoffs. “Great. While you do that, I’m going to Ard Carraigh to find this woman. I’ll run her through myself if I have to.” Nilfgaard could burn Kaer Morhen to the ground if they wanted – the old man, too. It wasn’t a home to him, it never had been.

“Wait, I’m coming with you, just give me a second,” Eskel says as Lambert lifts himself onto Roach’s saddle.

Eskel lowers the spies body to the ground and kicks a pile of stray leaves over his form.

“All done?” Lambert asks, sardonically.

Eskel doesn’t offer a response, choosing instead jump onto Scorpion’s saddle and push the horse into a sprint, just as it begins to _pour._

*

There’s no prelude to Anja’s arrival. A portal appears. She steps through. The portal closes. If Yennefer had blinked she would have missed it.

Bare feet pad across the floor. A rustle of skirts. Anja navigates the dark with ease.

“Yennefer.” Fire appears before Yennefer’s eyes, she catches a glimpse of Anja’s face before she has to squeeze her eyes shut. She’s so close. Crouched down so their faces are almost touching. Orange light filters through Yennefer’s eyelids and she has to take a steadying breath, as that memory digs its claws into her mind once more.

Hazarding a second glance, she opens her eyes but she’s been in the dark so long it hurts. A rough hand grabs her ankle and the manacle disappears with a _click._ Casting her eyes downward, she manages to open them just enough to see the room again. Jaskier lies on the floor, arms twisted beneath him, cheek pressed into the cold ground. Her eyes linger on his form just long enough to catch the rise and fall of his chest.

“Get up,” Anja says, foregoing any pleasantries. Yennefer’s eyes flick back to meet hers.Three jagged lines run down her cheek while the ghost of a bruise surrounds her eye.

“So you woke Ciri, then?” Yennefer says, a swell of pride rising in her chest. Geralt snaps his head towards her as she says Ciri’s name.

Anja huffs a breath through her nose, something Yennefer interprets as a laugh. “I did. She certainly has her grandmother’s blood,” she says, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

Yennefer’s lips twist into a grin as Anja grabs her by the elbow and yanks her upwards. “Hold her to your chest, Yennefer. This one will be painful,” Anja says and opens another portal with ease before shoving Yennefer through it. She stumbles and nearly crashes to her knees as the portal closes behind her. Anja does not follow.

The room is almost exactly the same, save for the pool of salve that has spread across the floor. Shards of glass lay in the liquid, twinkling in the firelight like tiny stars. As she looks up, Ciri whirls around. Tears streak her cheeks but her stance is _fierce,_ eyes wild. Blood slides down her arm and Yennefer catches a glint of something in her hand, sticking out from her knuckles. A shard of glass.

“ _Yennefer,”_ she whispers, dropping her hand to her side.

Slapping a hand down on the desk beside her, Yennefer rises to her feet as Ciri closes the space between them and throws her arms around Yennefer’s body – shard of glass still clutched tightly in her bleeding hand.

“ _Ciri,”_ she breathes the name into ashen waves and lets her eyes slip closed. 

Ciri pulls away and Yennefer almost pulls her back – determined to never let go again. “You’re hurt,” Ciri says.

Yennefer smiles. “It’s nothing,” she says. Gently, she lifts Ciri’s shaking hand, uncurls each finger, and Ciri lets her. “You’ve done well, Cub,” she praises as the shard of glass hits the floor. The gash on Ciri’s hand is deep, it will require stitches but for now, all that matters is Ciri is _safe._

“Did she hurt you?” Yennefer asks, cradling Ciri’s hand in hers. Furtively, she tries to gauge the level of Chaos in Ciri’s body, merely to see if it was something she could access. She’s almost relieved when she feels nothing – it would be unwise to tap into latent source magic.

Ciri shakes her head. “I don’t think so... I hurt her, I think.”

“Good,” Yennefer says, making no effort to hide the bite in her voice.

A string of questions leave Ciri’s mouth, the words falling over each other as her tongue struggles to form them properly. “It’s complicated, Cub,” Yennefer says with a sigh, suddenly aware of every ache in her body, the way her muscles have tensed so tightly not even a day long bath would help her unwind. “But I need you to listen to me,” she says, “she’s going to ask you for something, she’s going to ask you to say _‘yes’_ to her and...” Trailing off, an image of Jaskier flits through her mind's eye. The way his body tensed with each crack of the whip. The strangled cries that had filled the room. “Whatever she _says,_ whatever she _does,_ you cannot concede.”

And Ciri, with her haunted eyes, nods sharply. Yennefer brushes her pale cheek with the pad of her thumb. The lion cub was growing up too fast.

She doesn’t get time to lament, however, as a familiar feeling of dread pools in her stomach and a tug of magic draws her backwards.

Throwing her arms around Ciri, she forces her body between Ciri and the wall.

The pull towards Jaskier had been like the first quivering breath before a harrowed wail. _This_ was so much stronger, and far more desperate. Yennefer’s back hits the wall and Ciri’s body follows, knocking the air from her lungs, but her arms remain tight around the girl, head buried in her hair. Ciri lets out a soft whimper and struggles to break free, to alleviate the pressure on Yennefer’s chest. But Yennefer remains steadfast – as solid as an oak, feet planted on the ground.

The energy pulls and pulls and pulls. It’s as though she’s bound behind spooked horse, racing away from an unseen beast. She can’t breathe. She can’t _breathe._ There’s no air in the room. Her ribs are concaving, _bending,_ her spine becoming one with the wall behind her. She squeezes her eyes shut as black dots dance in her periphery. Magic scrapes the marrow out of her bones. Ciri flails and sobs in her grip but the Chaos, the _destiny,_ is undeterred by their cries. She’s going to die here. It’s too much.

Then it stops, just as quickly as it had started.

She sags forward, sides heaving as she sucks in air. Ciri untangles herself from Yennefer’s arms and stumbles backwards.

“ _It’s_ _done_ _, it’s_ _done_ _, it’s_ _done_ _,”_ Yennefer whispers as she slides down the wall, boneless.

This was dark magic. Dark enough that Fringilla’s tactics would be considered a mere parlour trick. She’s using destiny as Chaos, as a way to tear a hole in the world. The four of them were merely collateral, conduits in their own right.

“Are you okay?” she rasps, pushing her hair out of her face.

Ciri’s lips thin and she nods.

Yennefer breathes a sigh of relief and tilts her head back. Swallowing, she gingerly draws an image of Geralt into her mind – just to check. The love she has for him is still there, the shattered warmth. Most of that was her, but there had always been a shadow over her feelings. The djinn wish ran two ways, and while the strings of Geralt’s destiny had been sawed away to hang freely in the wind, hers remained. The bitterest part of her had hoped she would have been released at the same time.

Ciri staggers forward and collapses next to her. “What was that?” she whispers.

Yennefer turns to look at Ciri “This is why I said not to concede. She wants to steal your destiny from you.”

Ciri’s eyebrows knit together and she frowns. Yennefer explains as best she can, making a point not to mention source magic – that little revelation can wait until Ciri has the space to process her power.

“So this Jaskier started everything?” Ciri says, absently rolling the fabric of her trousers between her fingers.

“You could say that,” Yennefer says, lip quirked in practised disdain.

Ciri hums. Gnaws on her cheek. “Fuck.”

Yennefer smiles softly. “Pretend I told you not to say that,” she murmurs, closing her eyes.

Comfortable silence falls between them, and before she knows it, Yennefer finds herself drifting. There's no food in her stomach. Barely any water. They haven't been here long, but so much trauma condensed into such a short amount of time has taken its toll on her body.

“Yennefer?” Ciri says, after a time.

“Mm?”

“What happens if she does take all of our destinies?”

Yennefer opens one eye and rolls her head to look down at Ciri. “Something _ominous_ , I assume. I wouldn’t think too hard about it, Cub, she won’t succeed. I will not kneel before her, and neither will you.” She opens her eyes fully now, and reaches down to take Ciri’s hands in hers. “I will protect you, Cirilla. That is a _promise.”_

Ciri’s eyes mirror hers, determined and _burning_. Everything she owns is patterned with finger-shaped bruises and deep crescent moons because she has _fought_ for them. Her destiny had been altered enough by meddling parties. This child was her destiny by proxy – and no one would take that away from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, i hear you say, shit is happening. explanations are occuring. it only took like five whole ass months. if anything doesnt make sense ill go back and revisit lol 
> 
> look after yourselves & each other, stay safe, all my love etc

**Author's Note:**

> i am unfortunately dyslexic so no matter how many times i edit the absolute shit out of this things slip past me so if you see something, feel free to drop me a line i really appreciate it :)
> 
> I am also an incredibly slow writer ( & thus, Very jealous of people who can sit down and smash out 1000+ word pieces in one sitting & make something phenomenal) so my writing schedule may be a tad chaotic. 
> 
> thank you for reading :)!


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